Diane English Stiftel and Susan Kennedy Cambria have absolutely nothing in common. Diane lives with her parents and brother on their family peach farm in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. Susan and her husband, Alejandro, live in a penthouse in Chicago. But they are about to become family. Diane's son, Fred, is engaged to Susan's daughter, Shelby, and Diane is throwing them an old-fashioned Lowcountry barbeque to celebrate their engagement. The first meeting between the parents make it abundantly clear that they are from different worlds, but they both want their children to be happy. The coming months are filled with phone calls and wedding preparations as Susan spares no expense for her daughter's wedding. Susan wants to release $40,000 worth of butterflies at their wedding and Diane wants the kids to just be happy. When Shelby and Fred decide that they want to move up their wedding by nearly six months, Susan nearly implodes with anger. And Diane just wants the kids to be happy. The wedding may not be everything that Diane had wanted, but it was beautiful and it was perfect. But just days after the wedding Susan is forced into a reality that they thought she left behind when she married Alejandro. And she realizes that family, even new family, will be there through thick and thin.
Diane and Susan are about as different as two women can get. Diane is a down to earth farm girl and Susan is the kind of woman who serves take out for every meal, including holidays. Diane was very easy to like and Susan was very easy to not like. Susan was very high maintenance and self-absorbed and Diane was the loving, nurturing kind of mother that many long to have. Until she goes through her crisis. It was a transformation that was predictable, yet fun to observe because no character has a transformation like Susan Kennedy Cambria. I really loved everything about the English farm, including Diane's brother, Floyd. His no-nonsense, salt-of-the-earth demeanor reminds me of my own family. Even though it was all quite predictable, I still found myself wanting to see the story play out. Even though the end seemed familiar, like it had been done before, I was happy with the way it all worked out.
Bottom Line - Dorthea Benton Frank is to the Lowcountry like Elin Hilderbrand is to Nantucket. She knows the people, the culture, the climate, and the feeling that people get when they read her books. She is a talented writer who knows how to bring a sense of comfort to her readers.
Details:
- By Invitation Only by Dorthea Benton Frank
- On Facebook
- Pages: 400
- Publisher: HarperCollins
- Publication Date: 5/15/18
- Buy it Here!
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