Kirjahaku

“With humor and a nice southern accent…a fine follow-up to her highlypraised first novel, Grace at Love Tide.”–Booklist, starred reviewThe year is 1989 and dark currents lurk beneath the smooth surface of theelite Virginia campus where Adelaide Piper has come to study. Her poeticsensibility and idealism only irritate the socialites and cynics who notice herat all.After a heartbreaking loss of innocence, Adelaide must navigate between hergenteel Southern upbringing and the gritty realities of a new generation.Ultimately Adelaide must return to the very ground she once cursed, findinga deeper appreciation for her Southern heritage, however broken and imperfect.Featured in Southern Living's Books of the South

"One of the most charming books I've read in a long, long time...made me laugh, cry, and cheer--as all good weddings do."-Cassandra King, bestselling author of The Same Sweet GirlsWelcome to Jasper, South Carolina. A place where Southern hospitality thrives. Where social occasions are done right. And where, for generations, the four most upstanding ladies of this community ensure that the daughters of Jasper are married in the proper manner.Friends from school days, "the gals" have long pooled their silver, china, and know-how to pull off beautiful events. They're a force of nature, a well-oiled machine. But the wedding machine's gears start to stick during the summer their own daughters line up to tie the knot. In the lowcountry heat and humidity, tempers flare, old secrets leak out . . . and both love and gardenias bloom in unlikely places.

Charleston's past is full of romance. Does Anne's future hold the same? Beth Webb Hart weaves together the lives of three women from close-knit Southern town as each cope with broken dreams and crumbling relationships.Anne Brumley has long dreamed of love while ringing the bells at St. Michael's, but those dreams are beginning to fade. Her sister Alisha and cousin Della encourage the thirty-six year old to move somewhere new for a fresh start.Meanwhile, Alisha, Anne's sister, has a life that seems perfect: she's a gorgeous pediatrician with two beautiful children, a handsome doctor husband, and another baby on the way. But when the pregnancy takes an unexpected turn, perfection begins to unravel. And Cousin Della's former fiancé has returned to Charleston, making her wonder if she chose the wrong path when she married her gifted but unemployed-artist husband as they struggle to make ends meet.Widower Roy Summerall is new to town. He has happily ministered to the country folks of Church of the Good Shepherd for years. So why would the Lord call him and his daughter away to Charleston—the city that Roy remembers from his childhood as pretentious and superficial? Surely the refined congregation of St. Michael's won't accept a reverend with a red neck and a simple faith.Family, friendship, and faith converge in a beautiful story about how God's transforming love works in the Holy City of Charleston.Uplifting contemporary Southern Christian fictionIncludes discussion questions for book clubsAlso by Beth Webb Hart: The Wedding Machine and Moon over Edisto

The past has come knocking on Julia’s door. Can she summon the courage to answer betrayal with love?Once, they were the happiest family under the sun, crabbing and fishing and painting on beautiful Edisto Island in South Carolina’s lowcountry. Then everything went wrong, and twenty years later the Bennett family is still in pieces. Mary Ellen still struggles to understand why her picture-perfect marriage came apart. Daughter Meg keeps a death grip on her own family, controlling her relationships at a distance. And Julia thought she left it all behind.Julia’s best friend, Marney, broke up her parents’ marriage years ago. Now Marney shows up at her Manhattan apartment, asking the impossible—come home to Edisto Island to care for the half-sisters and half-brother she has never known. Marney, recently widowed, has lung cancer. There’s no other family to care for the children while she’s in the hospital following surgery.Julia loathes Marney. But if she doesn’t step in, her own mother—who has never gotten over the divorce—will be called upon to take care of the children. So Julia heads to South Carolina to keep the peace.Julia grudgingly agrees to stay a week caring for her three young half-siblings. But there’s something about Edisto that changes one, and she begins to reconnect with the place and the people that she's been running from her whole adult life.Can Julia and her fractured family somehow manage to come together again under that low-hanging Edisto moon?Contemporary Southern Christian fictionIncludes discussion questions for book clubsAlso by Beth Webb Hart: The Wedding Machine and Love, Charleston