Women's fiction focuses on mothers and daughters a great deal it seems, and Driftwood Summer by Patti Callahan Henry is a good example. The three daughters -- Riley, Maisy, and Adalee -- need to come together as a family and pull off a celebration of the family bookstore as their mother Kitsie has taken a fall down the stairs at home.
Riley, the daughter who stayed home and runs the bookstore, has a 12-year-old son. Maisy took off for California a dozen years ago to live her own life. Adalee is a college student...and flunking some classes as they do get in her way with partying and romance. With some heavy-handed persuasion, Riley convinces the two to help her get through the party and face the facts that if enough money is not made, the bookstore will become history.
Of course, there are other issues to face as well. Two sisters in love with the same guy doesn't work out so well so there is that. Riley comes face-to-face with dealing with the father of her son that she has never revealed to anyone. A secret illness complicates the situation as well.
While some might call this a beach read since it is set on a beach in Georgia, I found it to be more women's fiction or domestic fiction. I have been spending time getting to know Patti Callahan Henry's writing, and each book I have read has been quite different. She is not going to be pigeon-h0led as one type of writer.
Her best known novel is likely Becoming Mrs. Lewis about the love story of Joy Davidman and the author C.S. Lewis. A Pennsylvania native, Henry lives in Alabama and South Carolina with her husband and family.
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