Summer in the South

Today is another beautiful summer day and I am just about ready to pull up a chair outside and a cold drink while I begin another summer book. Yesterday I polished off Summer in the South by Cathy Holton.

I love books with Southern settings, so this one already had a check in its favor with setting alone. Add in a little suspense and Holton's novel was a perfect read.

Ava has gone to Tennessee for the summer to stay with her college friend, Will's, elderly aunts while she starts to work on a novel. Ava grew up without money, constantly moving with her mother from place to place, and what she encounters in Will's hometown is entirely different from the life she is used to. Will comes from a family of old money. His aunts were friends with Zelda Fitzgerald, William Faulkner and even Ernest Hemingway. They happily welcome her into their home where Ava suffers writer's block initially. Yet, this is a family with a few secrets and Ava can't resist doing a bit of sleuthing to find out what really happened to aunt Fanny's first husband, and why her friend Will and his cousin Jake no longer get along. Ava knows it would be better for her to leave these things alone, but can't help herself - especially since finding out more about this family is giving her plenty of material to write about in her novel.

I truly found Will's aunts fascinating- I loved their old money and the people that they surrounded themselves with. Although Holton's novel is not a mystery- I would still classify it as women's fiction, I enjoyed the suspense in this novel. The only rather implausible aspect of this novel was that Ava actually decided to give up her life and move in with some elderly aunts of a college friend she had not been in contact with for years- and who she was not interested in romantically. Aside from having a hard time thinking that would really happen, I felt the novel was very entertaining and enjoyable.

I am trying to get through a great number of beach books this summer and Summer in the South is a perfect read for this time of year.