The Night The Lights Went Out. Karen White. Penguin Publishing Group. April 2017.
416 pp. ISBN #: 9780451488381.
Merilee Talbot Dunlap and her two children are moving to
Sweet Apple, Georgia not far from Atlanta.
Merilee is recently divorced and not sure where she wants to
settle. So, she rents a small house behind
the home of her landlady, Sugar. It’s a
time of adjustment for all. Sugar
appears to be a tough elderly lady but as the story progresses we find that she
has a heart of gold, submerged beneath sarcastic retorts and much
grumbling. For one thing, she’s rough on
Merilee’s lack of Southern cooking skills, including how to make real “sweet
tea” and make vegetables palatable for children. Merilee has done fine with her son and
daughter and they like Sugar who makes amazing cookies and has a collection of
bird books that are an instant hit.
Now comes the interesting part as soon after Merilee and
her children settle into a job and school, respectively, it seems there’s an
Internet blogger who knows all about Merilee’s divorce. That’s a very different blogger from the
other blog that points out the humorous side of “Southern” living, and funny it
is!
Other characters include a handyman friend of Sugar who
volunteers to do all kinds of renovations and house fixing for Merilee and more
if she’s willing. Then there’s Heather,
a socialite who controls the charity benefits and school events and artfully
takes over every mother’s life, including Merilee. There’s also Heather’s husband who seems like
a regular guy living a very unhappy existence.
No, this isn’t just a snarky Southern satire, although it
certainly seems so! The story progresses
as Sugar and Merilee get closer and share the tragedies of their lives. Just as the bond grows into a beautiful
friendship, chaos looms large! The very
end of the novel jumps into a murder, an attempted murder and a mystery
revealed that one could never have imagined when first starting this story!
Karen White continues to defy attempts to stereotype her
writing. That’s the beauty of her
skills. Something to appeal to mystery,
romance, comedy, and adventure fill each of her novels, something to draw old
and new readers alike for a pleasurable experience.
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