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    Porch Lights

    4.2 178

    by Dorothea Benton Frank


    Paperback

    (Reprint)

    $14.99
    $14.99

    Customer Reviews

    • ISBN-13: 9780062211767
    • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
    • Publication date: 04/23/2013
    • Edition description: Reprint
    • Pages: 324
    • Sales rank: 35,108
    • Product dimensions: 5.48(w) x 7.88(h) x 0.80(d)

    New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank was born and raised on Sullivans Island, South Carolina. She divides her time between the New York area and the Lowcountry.

    Brief Biography

    Hometown:
    New Jersey and Sullivan's Island, South Carolina
    Place of Birth:
    Sullivan's Island, South Carolina
    Website:
    http://www.dotfrank.com
    Eligible for FREE SHIPPING details

    Choose Expedited Delivery at checkout for delivery by. Tuesday, October 15

    New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank is back home in the Carolina lowcountry, spinning a tale that brims with the warmth, charm, heart, and humor that has become her trademark. Porch Lights is a stirring, emotionally rich multigenerational story—a poignant tale of life, love, and transformation—as a nurse, returning to Sullivans Island from the Afghanistan War, finds her life has been irrevocably altered by tragedy…and now must rediscover love and purpose with the help of her son and aging mother.

    An evocative visit to enchanting Sullivans Island with its unique pluff mud beaches, palmetto trees, and colorful local lore—a novel filled with unforgettable characters, and enlivened by tales of the notorious Blackbeard and his bloodthirsty pirate crew and eerie Edgar Allan Poe stories—Porch Lights stands tall among the very best works of not only Dottie Frank, but Anne Rivers Siddons, Rebecca Wells, Pat Conroy, and other masters of the modern Southern novel as well.

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    For most summer arrivals in the Carolina lowcountry, the stay is a much-yearned vacation or a nostalgic visit home. For the nurse at the center of Dorothea Benton Frank's Porch Lights, the return begins as an overdue escape from the violence and the trauma of Iraq War emergency rooms; but as she becomes enmeshed in the life of this endearing beach community, she rediscovers a tranquility that she imagined she would never recover. Another heartwarming tale from Frank's signature lowcountry terrain. Now in trade paperback and NOOK Book.
    Kirkus Reviews
    Frank's latest is her usual warmhearted look at grief, healing and South Carolina coastal life. Jackie McMullen, an Army nurse, is relieved from her deployment in Afghanistan when she becomes the sole support of her 10-year-old son, Charlie. Her husband, Jimmy, a New York City firefighter, was killed in the line of duty. Her mother, Annie Britt, insists Jackie bring Charlie, who is deeply depressed after the loss of his father, to summer at the "Salty Dog," the Britts' Sullivan's Island home. Although Charlie takes immediately to Lowcountry beachcombing, Jackie is unsettled by her mother's obvious crush on Steve, the widowed dermatologist next door, who, Jackie notes ruefully, would rather flirt with daughter than mother. Annie is still married to Jackie's father, Buster, although they have lived apart for 11 years (ever since Buster embarked on an extended fishing trip). But the presence of his only grandson lures Buster back to the Salty Dog, as does, although he won't admit it, rekindled passion for Annie since her recent overhaul by a Charleston makeover maven. When Charlie himself (channeling Annie's fondest wish) starts angling to stay on Sullivan's Island instead of returning to Brooklyn, Jackie is torn. Jimmy's grave is in New York, and her mother can still push every one of her buttons, for example when she insists on telling Charlie morbid Edgar Allen Poe tales right before bedtime. The sudden death of a neighbor, the husband of Annie's best friend Deb, triggers a vicarious crisis that soon has the Britt family rethinking its priorities. Jackie and Doctor Steve, of course, both glimpse the possibility of moving on from loss together. Although leavened with wry humor, particularly in the sections narrated by Annie, the story stumbles under the weight of too many clichés. Moreover, Frank's target demographic may be put off by the portrayal of Annie and other aging Boomers as positively geriatric. Happy families are all alike, which is why, even on the beach, they can be a bore.

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