Where the Rivers Merge by Mary Alice Monroe

 In the first of two planned novels about the history of a plantation in the Lowcountry of South Carolina and its family, Mary Alice Monroe writes in the voice of an adult Eliza Rivers as she recalls her early years in Where the Rivers Merge being published May 13. The present is June 17, 1988, when Eliza, now Mrs. DeLancey, plans to protect Mayfield by putting 1,000 acres surrounding the farm into a conservation plan, a move her son Arthur protests as he tries to push her out of the DeLancey Group.

Eliza’s life as a young girl in the early 1900s consisted of plenty of chores but also time to explore the land, the pond, the forests, the birds, and other creatures. A horse lover, Eliza recounts a bit of history about the Marsh Tacky as she recollects her father’s purchase of the stallion Capitan. However, life on Mayfield was not all rosy as the Rivers family was “land rich and money poor” causing some of the strife in the often-dysfunctional family with a city mother and a country father.

Over the years, Eliza has been able to turn things around on Mayfield, creating a profitable truck market business, and she is developing the Mayfield Wildlife Foundation to preserve the land. With her second marriage, she gained a “collection of businesses into a conglomerate of corporations and subsidiaries” that became the DeLancey Group.

With her son’s limited vision for Mayfield and the company, Eliza seeks out her niece Savannah and grandniece Norah to visit Mayfield so she can share the story of her family’s history with them. A mural in the dining room of the house serves to prod Eliza to tell the stories that go with the scenes starting in the 1700s with construction of the fields for the farm’s original crop, rice.

This initial book in the series takes the reader up to Eliza’s first wedding in 1926 as she ends the telling with “This story is far from over.” Mary Alice Monroe, the Queen of Low Country Fiction and a go-to author of beach reads, has turned her hand to historical fiction, leaving this reader eager for the next book, to be called The Rivers’ End, to learn about all the tales remaining in the mural and the questions left unanswered.

Monroe is at her best when dealing with complex family situations and relationships. She lives on the Isle of Palms, a small barrier island just outside of Charleston, and has a mountain hideaway in North Carolina.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting April 12, 2025.

I would like to thank William Morrow, an imprint of Harper/Collins Publishers, and NetGalley for providing me with an Advanced Readers’ Copy in return for an objective review.