Search results for ""author mary alice monroe""

Last Light Over Carolina Every woman in the sultry South Carolina low country knows the unspoken fear that clutches the heart every time her man sets out to sea. Now, that fear has become a terrible reality for Carolina Morrison. Her husband, shrimp boat captain Bud Morrison, is lost and alone somewhere in the vast Atlantic fishing grounds, with a storm gathering and last light falling. Over the course of one terrifying, illuminating day, Carolina looks back across thirty years of love and loss, joy and sorrow: How she rejected a well-to-do upbringing to marry Bud and embrace his extraordinary lifestyle by the sea . . . how hard times and loneliness have driven them apart . . . and how, with one mistake, she may have shattered their once-unbreakable bond forever. While their the close-knit community rallies together to search for one of its own, Carolina knows their love must somehow call him home, across miles of rough water and unspeakable memories. New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe explores a vanishing feature of the southern coastline, the mysterious yet time-honored shrimping culture, in a compelling tale of a strong woman struggling to prove that love is a light that never dies.

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The Shark’s Tooth is a poetic tale of imagination and conservation in which a young girl visiting her grandparents’ beach house finds friendship with the ocean’s creatures. Sharks’ teeth are given to her by her new aquatic friends as gifts, symbolic of her connections to nature and the sea. As the little girl grows up and moves away to the city, she loses her kinship to the natural world. When she returns to the beach house as an adult, she is convinced that her childhood memories were only acts of make-believe - until she receives a sign that her ocean adventures may have been real after all.The Shark’s Tooth is the first children’s book written by New York Times best-selling author Ron Rash. Cecile L. K. Martin’s colorful cut-paper illustrations complement the story, and novelist and children’s author Mary Alice Monroe provides an engaging afterword on the story’s empowering message of creativity and conservation.

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An instant New York Times bestseller!​ “Storytelling for young readers at its finest—equal parts summer adventure and environmental suspense…[a] love letter to family, friendship, and the natural world.” —Kwame Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The Crossover From New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe comes a beautiful story of friendship, loss, and the healing power of nature in her first book for middle grade readers.Eleven-year-old Jake’s life has just turned upside-down. His father was wounded in Afghanistan, and his mother is going to leave to care for him. That means Jake’s spending the summer on tiny Dewees Island with his grandmother. The island is a nature sanctuary—no cars or paved roads, no stores or restaurants. To make matters worse, Jake’s grandmother doesn’t believe in cable or the internet. Which means Jake has no cell phone, no video games...and no friends. This is going to be the worst summer ever! He’s barely on the island before he befriends two other kids—Macon, another “summer kid,” and Lovie, a know-it-all who lives there and shows both Jake and Macon the ropes of life on the island. All three are struggling with their own family issues and they quickly bond, going on adventures all over Dewees Island. Until one misadventure on an abandoned boat leads to community service. Their punishment? Mandatory duty on the Island Turtle Team. The kids must do a daily dawn patrol of the beach on the hunt for loggerhead sea turtle tracks. When a turtle nest is threatened by coyotes, the three friends must find a way to protect it. Can they save the turtle nest from predators? Can Jake’s growing love for the island and its inhabitants (be they two-legged, four-legged, feathered, or finned) help to heal his father?

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An instant New York Times bestseller!​ “Storytelling for young readers at its finest—equal parts summer adventure and environmental suspense…[a] love letter to family, friendship, and the natural world.” —Kwame Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The Crossover From New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe comes a beautiful story of friendship, loss, and the healing power of nature in her first book for middle grade readers.Eleven-year-old Jake’s life has just turned upside-down. His father was wounded in Afghanistan, and his mother is going to leave to care for him. That means Jake’s spending the summer on tiny Dewees Island with his grandmother. The island is a nature sanctuary—no cars or paved roads, no stores or restaurants. To make matters worse, Jake’s grandmother doesn’t believe in cable or the internet. Which means Jake has no cell phone, no video games...and no friends. This is going to be the worst summer ever! He’s barely on the island before he befriends two other kids—Macon, another “summer kid,” and Lovie, a know-it-all who lives there and shows both Jake and Macon the ropes of life on the island. All three are struggling with their own family issues and they quickly bond, going on adventures all over Dewees Island. Until one misadventure on an abandoned boat leads to community service. Their punishment? Mandatory duty on the Island Turtle Team. The kids must do a daily dawn patrol of the beach on the hunt for loggerhead sea turtle tracks. When a turtle nest is threatened by coyotes, the three friends must find a way to protect it. Can they save the turtle nest from predators? Can Jake’s growing love for the island and its inhabitants (be they two-legged, four-legged, feathered, or finned) help to heal his father?

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With a strong, warm voice that brings the South to life, New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe writes richly textured stories that intimately portray the complex and emotional relationships we share with families, friends, and the natural world. "Every book that Mary Alice Monroe has written has felt like a homecoming to me," writes Pat Conroy, bestselling author of The Prince of Tides. Time Is a River is an insightful novel that will sweep readers away to the seductive southern landscape, joining books by authors such as Anne Rivers Siddons and Sue Monk Kidd. Recovering from breast cancer and reeling from her husband's infidelity, Mia Landan flees her Charleston home to heal in the mountains near Asheville, North Carolina. She seeks refuge in a neglected fishing cabin belonging to her fly-fishing instructor, Belle Carson. Belle recently inherited the cabin, which once belonged to a grandmother she never knew -- the legendary fly fisher and journalist of the 1920s, Kate Watkins, whose life fell into ruins after she was accused of murdering her lover. Her fortune lost in the stock market crash and her reputation destroyed, Kate slipped into seclusion in the remote cabin. After her death the fishing cabin remained locked and abandoned for decades. Little does Belle know that by opening the cabin doors to Mia for a summer's sanctuary, she will open again the scandal that plagued Belle's family for generations. From her first step inside the dusty cabin, Mia is fascinated by the traces of Kate's mysterious story left behind in the eccentric furnishings of the cabin. And though Belle, ashamed of the tabloid scandal that tortured her mother, warns Mia not to stir the mud, Mia is compelled to find out more about Kate...especially when she discovers Kate's journal. The inspiring words of the remarkable woman echo across the years. Mia has been learning to fly-fish, and Kate's wise words comparing life to a river resonate deeply. She begins a quest to uncover the truth behind the lies. As she searches newspaper archives and listens to the colorful memories of the local small-town residents, the story of a proud, fiercely independent woman emerges. Mia feels a strange kinship with the woman who, like her, suffered fears, betrayal, the death of loved ones, and a fall from grace -- yet found strength, compassion and, ultimately, forgiveness in her isolation. A story timeless in its appeal emerges, with a power that reopens old wounds, but also brings a transforming healing for Mia, for Kate's descendants, and for all those in Mia's new community.

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From the Appalachians to the Atlantic, South Carolina's awe-inspiring beauty is revealed in this visually stirring and heart-warming tribute to one of America's favourite vacation destinations. Rich with more than 250 stunning photographs, this second volume of Reflections of South Carolina uncovers the geological, natural, and cultural grandeur the Palmetto State packs into 32,000 square miles. A foreword by New York Times best-selling author Mary Alice Monroe complements the photographs and text. In a landscape abundant with waterfalls, rivers, lakes, and surf, South Carolina overflows with flora and fauna, as well as astonishing vistas. On their new journey, photographer Robert C. Clark and writer Tom Poland set out on a path of discovery that reveals charming country stores, water-powered gristmills, enchanting meadows, and extraordinary people and places. From angles high and low, this keepsake book illuminates the state's summits, swamps, shores, and islands that brim with life, beauty, and culture. Turn the pages and explore the mountain majesties, fruited plain, and shining sea--South Carolina holds so much of what makes this country ""America the Beautiful."" Reflections of South Carolina, Volume 2 documents the state's surprising variety as well. You can stand atop Sassafras Mountain in August and yet feel fall's chill or walk Charleston's cobblestone streets in shorts in the middle of February. Clark and Poland advise visitors and residents alike to take their time exploring South Carolina and whenever possible to take the road less travelled--for the next turn might reveal an antebellum-era slave chapel, a farmer peddling honey and tomatoes, a mountain's reflection in a sparkling lake, or a peach orchard exploding pink. What could be next? A praise house? An unforgettable character? Art on an abandoned boat? Discovery makes a great companion.

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The Summer Wind is the second book in Monroe’s Lowcountry Summer trilogy, following the New York Times bestselling The Summer Girls. This series is a poignant and heartwarming story of three half-sisters and their grandmother, who is determined to help them rediscover their southern roots and family bonds.It’s midsummer and Eudora, nicknamed Dora, is staying at Sea Breeze, the family’s ancestral home on Sullivan’s Island. For years, Dora has played the role of the perfect wife and mother in a loveless marriage. Now her husband filed for divorce, her child is diagnosed with autism, and her house is on the market. Dora’s facade collapses under the weight of her grief and she suffers “broken heart syndrome.” Mamaw and the girls rally around Dora—but it’s up to Dora to heal herself as she spends the summer prowling the beach, discovering the secrets of the island and her heart. This is a summer of discovery for all the women of Sea Breeze. Carson returns from Florida to face life-changing decisions, Lucille confronts a health scare, and an unexpected visitor has Harper reconsidering her life’s direction. When tropical storm winds batter the island, the women must band together and weather the tempest—both the one outside their windows and the raging sea of emotions within each of them. They must learn again what it means to be a sister. It is up to Mamaw to keep the light burning at Sea Breeze to guide the girls through the lies, the threats, and the rocky waters of indecision to home.

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Set in the early 1950s rural South, One Good Mama Bone chronicles Sarah Creamer’s quest to find her “mama bone” after she is left to care for a boy who is not her own but instead is the product of an affair between her husband and her best friend and neighbor, a woman she calls “Sister.” When her husband drinks himself to death, Sarah, a dirt-poor homemaker with no family to rely on and the note on the farm long past due, must find a way for her and young Emerson Bridge to survive. But the more daunting obstacle is Sarah’s fear that her mother’s words, seared in her memory since she first heard them at the age of six, were a prophesy: “You ain’t got you one good mama bone in you, girl.”When Sarah reads in the local newspaper that a boy won $680 with his Grand Champion steer at the recent 1951 Fat Cattle Show & Sale, she sees this as their financial salvation and finds a way to get Emerson Bridge a steer from a local farmer to compete in the 1952 show. But the young calf is unsettled at Sarah’s farm, crying out in distress and growing louder as the night wears on. Some four miles away, the steer’s mother hears his cries and breaks out of a barbed-wire fence to go in search of him. The next morning Sarah finds the young steer quiet, content, and nursing on a large cow. Inspired by the mother cow’s act of love, Sarah names her Mama Red. And so Sarah’s education in motherhood begins with Mama Red as her teacher.But Luther Dobbins, the man who sold Sarah the steer, has his sights set on winning too, and, like Sarah, he is desperate, but not for money. Dobbins is desperate for glory, wanting to regain his lost Grand Champion dynasty, and he will stop at nothing to win. Emboldened by her lessons from Mama Red and her budding mama bone, Sarah is fully committed to victory until she learns the winning steer’s ultimate fate. Will she stop at nothing, even if it means betraying her teacher?McClain’s writing is distinguished by a sophisticated and detailed portrayal of the day-to-day realities of rural poverty and an authentic sense of time and place that marks the best southern fiction. Her characters transcend their archetypes, and her animal-as-teacher theme recalls the likes of Water for Elephants and The Art of Racing in the Rain. One Good Mama Bone explores the strengths and limitations of parental love, the healing power of the human-animal bond, and the ethical dilemmas of raising animals for food. Mary Alice Monroe, a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of eighteen novels and two children's books, provides a foreword to the novel.

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The sequel to New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe’s The Islanders, an “exciting, tender, and absolutely wonderful” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) story of friendship, loss, and the healing power of nature.Jake Potter is back on Dewees Island for another summer with his beloved grandmother, Honey. This time, Jake is excited that his dad will be there as he continues to recover from his injuries sustained in Afghanistan. But Jake also knows they both need get used to a new normal, which isn’t easy. Jake also discovers that his two best friends, Macon and Lovie, are struggling as well. Macon is adjusting to being a big brother, while Lovie is navigating a new relationship with her dad, who has long been absent in her life. To cheer everyone up, Jake decides that the trio needs a new mission, just like they had the previous summer in saving the turtles. He discovers that his dad loved spending time in an old tree fort on the island, and there is a special treasure box hidden somewhere nearby. Jake just knows if he can find it, maybe his dad will be happy again—and he knows Macon and Lovie are the perfect fellow treasure hunters! Their search leads them to discover there might be actual buried treasure somewhere on Dewees, all while they battle some unwelcome guests on the island, of both the two- and four-legged kind! On the three friends’ biggest quest yet, they realize that the treasures they really want in life were with them all along.

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The sequel to New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe’s The Islanders, an “exciting, tender, and absolutely wonderful” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) story of friendship, loss, and the healing power of nature.Jake Potter is back on Dewees Island for another summer with his beloved grandmother, Honey. This time, Jake is excited that his dad will be there as he continues to recover from his injuries sustained in Afghanistan. But Jake also knows they both need get used to a new normal, which isn’t easy. Jake also discovers that his two best friends, Macon and Lovie, are struggling as well. Macon is adjusting to being a big brother, while Lovie is navigating a new relationship with her dad, who has long been absent in her life. To cheer everyone up, Jake decides that the trio needs a new mission, just like they had the previous summer in saving the turtles. He discovers that his dad loved spending time in an old tree fort on the island, and there is a special treasure box hidden somewhere nearby. Jake just knows if he can find it, maybe his dad will be happy again—and he knows Macon and Lovie are the perfect fellow treasure hunters! Their search leads them to discover there might be actual buried treasure somewhere on Dewees, all while they battle some unwelcome guests on the island, of both the two- and four-legged kind! On the three friends’ biggest quest yet, they realize that the treasures they really want in life were with them all along.

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