SUMMER IN THE SOUTH by Cathy Holten

Publisher: Random House
Date Published: March 2011
ISBN: 978-0-345-50601-6
Hardback
Woman’s Fiction
Reviewed by Angie
Review Copy Provided by Publisher


Ava Dabrowski needs a change of scenery after an affair with a co-worker ends, her job is at a dead end, and her mother passes away. When a friend from college asks her to visit him and his great aunts in Tennessee she decides to leave her life in Chicago behind and travel to the south to find out if she truly can write a novel. As Ava follows her dreams she finds that writing her own story about her nomadic childhood is harder than she ever dreamed – but writing a tale of the past is her true calling.

Ava finds herself torn between two cousins, the friend Will who brought her to Tennessee and his cousin Jake whom he has not spoken to in years, although the two live in the same small town. Will has an eccentric family full of history and Ava cannot help but dig into his past to find out what truths lie behind the family secrets.

SUMMER IN THE SOUTH is a tale of true southern belles, gentlemen and the rouges that kept them on their toes. The historical references are well done, the authors of the past woven into the story in a way of aristocrats lives intermingled in the early 1900’s. Many of the characters bring a look into the past that will leave readers wanting to know more of the secondary characters and the generations of the past. Will’s great aunts who raised him are lively colorful characters whose stories deserve to be told in their own right.

The one downfall to this tale was that the ending was a letdown that left me wanting more. I wanted Ava to fall in love and find her true happiness before the last page. Finding the truth about Aunt Fanny’s first husband lures Ava towards writing her first novel and knowing how that ended gave the story a great turn, yet Ava finds no resolution to her relationship with Jake. Will Ava fall in love with him, or will the security of Will lure her to him? I needed a resolution that was missing from the ending.

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.