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    The Beach Trees

    4.2 166

    by Karen White


    Paperback

    $15.00
    $15.00

    Customer Reviews

    • ISBN-13: 9780451233073
    • Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
    • Publication date: 05/03/2011
    • Pages: 432
    • Sales rank: 47,811
    • Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)
    • Age Range: 18Years

    Karen White is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty novels, including the Tradd Street series, The Night the Lights Went OutFlight PatternsThe Sound of GlassA Long Time Gone, and The Time Between. She is the coauthor of The Forgotton Room with New York Times bestselling authors Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig. She grew up in London but now lives with her husband and two children near Atlanta, Georgia.

    What People are Saying About This

    From the Publisher

    “[White] describes the land and location of the story in marvelous detail...[This is what] makes White one of the best new writers on the scene today.”—The Huffington Post

    The Beach Trees has beach in the title and has an ocean setting, but it’s more than just a ‘beach read.’ It’s a worthy novel to read any time of year—any time you wonder if it’s possible to start anew, regardless of the past.”—Durham Herald-Sun

    “Tightly plotted...a tangled history as steamy and full of mysteries as the Big Easy itself.”—Atlanta Journal Constitution

    “Sense of place is high on the list of things that White does exceedingly well...But place is more than mere setting in this novel; it is also a character, as tenacious and resilient as the people who call this region home...I give this book my highest recommendation.”—The Romance Dish

    “White has once again written a novel that is both heart-wrenching and heartwarming, and is filled with all the gentle nuances of the graceful, but steadfast, South...Readers will find White’s prose an uplifting experience as she is a truly gifted storyteller.”—Las Vegas Review-Journal

    “White’s ability to write a book that keeps you hankering for more is her strong suit. The Beach Trees is a great book about the power of family and connection that you won’t soon forget.”—South Charlotte Weekly

    “White...weaves together themes of Southern culture, the powerful bond of family, and the courage to rebuild in the face of destruction to create an incredibly moving story her dedicated fans are sure to embrace.”—The Moultrie News
     

    Reading Group Guide

    INTRODUCTION

    From the age of twelve, Julie Holt has known what a random tragedy can do to a family. At that tender age, her little sister disappeared—never to be found. It was a loss that slowly eroded the family bonds she once relied on.

    As an adult with a prestigious job in the arts, Julie meets a struggling artist who reminds her so much of her sister, she can't help feeling protective. It is a friendship that begins a long and painful process of healing for Julie, leading her to a house on the Gulf Coast, ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, and to stories of a mysterious family that take her deep into the past.

    ABOUT KAREN WHITE

    Karen White is the author of many acclaimed novels. She lives in Georgia with her family.

    DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  • Why do you think Monica willed everything, including Beau and her beloved beach home, River Song, to Julie—especially as she still had family living? What were her intentions, and what was she trying to say? What are the repercussions for Julie?
  • How does Chelsea Holt's disappearance shape Julie's life? What emotions still haunt her, even after almost twenty years?
  • What significance does the portrait of Caroline Guidry with the alligator brooch hold to each member of her family? Are the sentiments diverse? What clues does it hold within it?
  • Do Aimee's flashbacks fill us in with an objective history of the intertwined Guidry and Mercier families? What critical clues does Julie glean from them to advance her investigation?
  • How does the search into the past—and for loved ones including Caroline, Monica, Chelsea, and Aimee's mother—influence the trajectory of the characters' lives, psychologies, and their relationships to each other? How do secrets come to define and haunt the Guidrys?
  • What motivates Julie to dig through old case files and artifacts to connect the dots between the two families? Do you think she was foolish not to let sleeping dogs lie? Would you want to know the truth, especially if it was unsavory? Is this doggedness a beneficial trait, or are there costs for Julie? How does she end up untangling the mystery?
  • Why do you think the residents of the Gulf continue to rebuild after numerous tragedies—most recently from Camille, Katrina, and the BP oil spill—on the same plots of land that remain highly vulnerable? What might tie them to this place? What is the significance in rebuilding?
  • How does Julie's life mirror that of Aimee's? Both assumed a form of guardianship—of Johnny, Beau—and both seek answers to the unexplained tragedies in their lives, but what sets them apart? What do they offer to each other?
  • Do you think Aimee and Wes did the right thing in loving each other from afar, keeping their feelings secret to spare Gary's heart? What were the consequences?
  • What did you think happened to Caroline? And who did you think killed Aimee's mother? Were you shocked by the revelations? What kept the secrets airtight for so long, and what is at stake with them no longer being held?
  • What were Ray Von and Xavier Williams' roles in the scandalous events? Do you think Xavier did the right and necessary things? Do you think he was effective in shielding Aimee?
  • What do you think the next chapter at River Song holds for Julie, Trey, Beau, and the rest of the Guidry family?
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    Now in mass market from the New York Times bestselling author of the Tradd Street novels: a story of one woman’s journey into a secret past—and a life she never expected on the ravaged coast of Biloxi, Mississippi...

    Working at an auction house in New York, Julie Holt meets a struggling artist and single mother who reminds her very much of her missing younger sister. Monica Guidry paints a vivid picture of her Southern family through stories, but never says why or how she lost contact with them. And she has another secret: a heart condition that will soon take her life.
     
    Feeling as if she’s lost her sister a second time, Julie inherits from Monica an antique portrait—as well as custody of her young son. Taking him to Biloxi, Mississippi, to meet the family he’s never known, Julie discovers a connection of her own. The portrait, of an old Guidry relative, was done by her great-grandfather—and unlocks a surprising family history....
     
    READERS GUIDE INCLUDED

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    Publishers Weekly
    White (On Folly Beach) spins a convoluted story of unexplained disappearances and family secrets stretching from New Orleans to Biloxi, Miss. Five years after Katrina, New Yorker Julie Holt arrives in New Orleans with a mission: she's got a deed to a Biloxi beach house and surprise custody of Beau, her late friend Monica's five-year-old son, and she intends to introduce Beau to the extended family he's never met. Soon, with the help of Monica's grandmother, Aimee, and brother, Trey, Julie begins to piece together exactly why Monica left her home and family, and that Monica's family's secrets run deep and murky—they involve a murder, a famous painter, and a disappearance—which Julie can relate to, as her own sister was kidnapped when she was a child. Told in alternating chapters—Julie in the present, Aimee in the 1950s—as both women search for answers to their respective mysteries, the novel is slow moving and more confusingly teased out than the plot warrants, with White's descriptions of the gulf coast—and New Orleans in particular—offering more reason to keep reading than the less than expert treatment of the families' tormented pasts. (May)
    From the Publisher
    Praise for The Beach Trees
     
    “White’s ability to write a book that keeps you hankering for more is her strong suit. The Beach Trees is a great book about the power of family and connection that you won’t soon forget.”—South Charlotte Weekly
     
    “Tightly plotted...a tangled history as steamy and full of mysteries as the Big Easy itself.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
     
    “A worthy novel to read any time of year—anytime you wonder if it’s possible to start anew, regardless of the past.”—The Herald-Sun (NC)
     
    Praise for New York Times Bestselling Author Karen White
     
    “There is a rhythm to the writing of Karen White. It has a pace, a beat, a cadence that is all its own.”—The Huffington Post
     
    “The ultimate voice of women’s fiction.”—Fresh Fiction
     
    “This is storytelling of the highest order: the kind of book that leaves you both deeply satisfied and aching for more.”—New York Times bestselling author Beatriz Williams
     
    “Readers will find White’s prose an uplifting experience, as she is a truly gifted storyteller.”—Las Vegas Review-Journal

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