The Favorite Daughter: A Novel by Patti Callahan Henry

The Favorite Daughter: A Novel. Patti Callahan Henry. Penguin Publishing Group.  June 2019. pb, 368 pp.; ISBN: 9780399583131.

Lena (Colleen) Donohue proceeded to walk to her wedding and instead accidentally walked in on an act of betrayal that ultimately changed her life forever.  She loved her hometown of Watersend, South Carolina but fled to New York on that traumatic day.  One can leave to New York and begin a successful life as a journalist but can one forget one’s true “home” and return without having to deal with her immense pain and inability to forgive?  Can one learn to trust again and perhaps even learn to love without waiting for another disaster to follow?

When Lena’s brother Shane begs her to come home to help with their Dad, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.  Of course, she returns but does everything she can to avoid her sister Hallie.  That’s not really possible but they realize concern for their father must take top priority. 

So they decide to throw a 60^th birthday for their father and to create a memory book that spans Virginia, Ireland and South Carolina, so that he can remember and refer to it frequently before his memory declines completely.  In the process of doing this, the family discover secrets very close to Lena’s heartache and how their parents coped with their sense of betrayal and forgiveness.

Eventually Hallie will have that conversation she’s always wanted to have before Lena ran away to New York but not until many terse, sniping words pass back and forth between the two formerly very close sisters.  Yes, home is more than just a place.  It’s a location where all the ups and downs as well as the acts and words that destroy and bind happen, albeit a wee bit contrived. The personalities are spunky and tender in just the right spots.  It will trigger the reader to contemplate what one considers to be one’s own precious memories!

The Favorite Daughter is a good read, a story brimming with passion, love, hate, forgiveness and renewal.  It’s also a lovely story of a beautiful part of the country which is described in all its lush greenery, marshland and seaside.  A very nice summer read!

The Bookshop at Water's End: A Novel by Patti Callahan Henry

The Bookshop at Water’s End. Patti Callahan Henry. Penguin Publishing Group. July 2017. 352 pp. ISBN #: 970399583117. 

To be an Emergency Nurse physician requires finely honed skills that must occur automatically but still leave room for exceptional circumstances that just might change one’s normal protocol. So when Bonnie Blankenship’s treatment of a patient results in a disaster, she takes it very personally.  Of course, she doesn’t realize that when one’s personal life is askew, automatic emotional fatigue will take its toll and thereby betray one’s usual performance.  The end result is the good doctor has been ordered to go on a brief “sabbatical” until decisions at her hospital are made.  Bonnie makes some immediate decisions that she believes she should have made long ago; whether they are right or wrong remains to be seen. 

So off to Water’s End, a small South Carolinian vacation town, she and her best friend of many years, Lainey McKay, go with their children, minus spouses.  A mystery surrounding the disappearance of Lainey’s mother years ago almost stops Lainey from returning here.  It also seems that Lainey’s brother, Owen, is an old flame of Bonnie who comes and goes on his own needs, even though Bonnie and Owen are in love.

Bonnie’s daughter Piper is also along for the trip, albeit reluctantly.  She’s got a reputation for acting out but she’s also got a secret that’s behind her excess drinking etc.  Can Bonnie and Piper repair the damage of their tense relationship?

This is a novel involving a bookshop where everyone winds up getting the book or hearing words most need to hear.  Now, that’s truly remarkable!  It sounds like a silly but wishful premise initially until the novel and conflict twists and turns progress.

No, you can’t possibly predict where the complex layers of plot are going and it make the read even that more delicious!!!!  You will be satisfied!  Highly recommended contemporary fiction that is finely crafted!