On Folly Beach

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Well this is an exciting review for me because it is the very first review I have ever done for a publisher!  A few months ago a very nice lady from Joan Schulhafer Publishing and Media contacted me, and wanted to see if I would like to read a few of their new releases and blog to all you wonderful readers about them.  I eagerly accepted her generous offer and then proceeded to blog about all the horrid books I had been reading lately.  I am sure that this wonderful publishing lady was kicking herself in the butt wondering why she gave these books to a snarky blogger that has nothing good to say about anything she had read recently {but what can I say I'm an honest blogger and I'm going to tell it like it is}.  

Fortunately I only have very fabulous things to say about On Folly Beach by Karen White.  The Characters were all delightful, the story was interesting and you wanted to keep reading "one more chapter" before you had to do something else {and then one more chapter after that}.  And like most Southern Literature it made you want to move on down to the deep south and get wrapped up into their easy way of life.  Plus {and this is a big ol' bonus for moi} but half of the story was  in modern time and the other half was in the 1940s during WWII! I had no idea that it would be jumping back and forth between two stories and two time eras and I was quite pleasantly surprised because I heart historical fiction especially anything having to do with WWII! 

So let me give you a little run down so you know what to expect with On Folly Beach.  In the very beginning we meet Emmy {in modern time}, she has just learned that her husband Ben has been killed in Afghanistan, and her life simply stops.  She can't get over his tragic death and her Mom Paige talks her into leaving their family home in Indiana and move to Folly Beach South Carolina to purchase a book shop that is for sale there.  Emmy is a literature and book lover and she has a degree in Library Science, and she begrudgingly takes her mothers advice and heads to South Carolina to start a new life and run the book shop Folly's Finds.  When she arrives she slowly falls in love with the people there, and her new shop, but only through the help of some long lost love letters that she finds between the pages of some of the old books in the shop.  The love letters are written by two star crossed lovers and Emmy is determined to find out who these lovers were and what happened to them.  As the mystery unravels you learn a lot about Folly, the lovers, and Emmy's pain of letting go.  The story jumps between Emmy and her sleuthing and the lovers and their lives on Folly during WWII.

This book is a perfect summer read.  Grab it before your next vacation and find a shady place in the sand with a good drink at your fingertips and enjoy every sentence of this beautiful story.  I highly recommend this to anyone that love Southern Literature, Historical Fiction, Book Club groups.  Enjoy it and review it and let the reading world know that it is a great read!!!

BOOK vs. MOVIE:  No movie but if there were I'd bet it would be a tear jerker!

RATING: 4 stars

3 More Reviews of On Folly Beach:

Cafe of Dreams

Books and Movies

Bermudaonian's Weblog

On Folly Beach by Karen White

{Publisher Copy}

ISBN 9780451229212

Pages 416

If you liked On Folly Beach then please read:  The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd