Return To Sullivans Island

“Her books are funny, sexy, and usually damp with seawater.” —Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides In Return to Sullivans Island, Dorothea Benton Frank revisits the enchanted landscape of South Carolina’s Lowcountry made famous in her beloved New York Times bestseller Sullivans Island. Frank focuses on the next generation of Hamiltons and Hayes, earning high praise from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which writes, “Frank brings to vivid life the rich landscape and its unpretentious folks….A reader need only close her eyes for a moment to feel that thick-sticky heat, smell the wild salt marshes.” If you enjoy getting lost in the works of Anne Rivers Siddons, Rebecca Wells, and Pat Conroy—novels brimming with atmosphere and strong Southern charm—you are going to love Dotty Frank’s Return to Sullivans Island.

Set in the steamy, stormy landscape of South Carolina, this New York Times bestseller from the author of Queen Bee is the unforgettable story of one woman’s courageous journey toward truth… Born and raised on idyllic Sullivan’s Island, Susan Hayes navigated through her turbulent childhood with humor, spunk, and characteristic Southern sass. But years later, she is a conflicted woman with an unfaithful husband, a sometimes resentful teenage daughter, and a heart that aches with painful, poignant memories. And as Susan faces her uncertain future, she realizes that she must go back to her past. To the beachfront house where her sister welcomes her with open arms. To the only place she can truly call home...

New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank is back home in the Carolina lowcountry, spinning a tale that brims with the warmth, charm, heart, and humor that has become her trademark. Porch Lights is a stirring, emotionally rich multigenerational story—a poignant tale of life, love, and transformation—as a nurse, returning to Sullivans Island from the Afghanistan War, finds her life has been irrevocably altered by tragedy…and now must rediscover love and purpose with the help of her son and aging mother. An evocative visit to enchanting Sullivans Island with its unique pluff mud beaches, palmetto trees, and colorful local lore—a novel filled with unforgettable characters, and enlivened by tales of the notorious Blackbeard and his bloodthirsty pirate crew and eerie Edgar Allan Poe stories—Porch Lights stands tall among the very best works of not only Dottie Frank, but Anne Rivers Siddons, Rebecca Wells, Pat Conroy, and other masters of the modern Southern novel as well.

“Frank…writes with genuine adoration for and authority on the South Carolina Lowcountry from which she sprang….[Her] stuff is never escapist fluff—it’s the real deal.” —Atlanta Journal-Constitution Return to Tall Pines in the long-awaited sequel to Dorothea Benton Frank’s beloved bestseller Plantation. Lowcountry Summer is the story of the changing anatomy of a family after the loss of its matriarch, sparkling with the inimitable Dot Frank’s warmth and humor. The much-beloved New York Times bestselling author follows the recent success of Return to Sullivans Island, Bulls Island, and Land of Mango Sunsets with a tale rich in atmosphere and unforgettable scenes of Southern life, once again placing her at the dais, alongside Anne Rivers Siddons, Sue Monk Kidd, Rebecca Wells, Pat Conroy, and other masters of contemporary Southern fiction.

“If I could only read one writer from now until the end of my life, it would be Dorothea Benton Frank." —Elin Hilderbrand, the New York Times bestselling author Immerse yourself in the enchanting world of New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank’s Carolina Lowcountry in this evocative tale that returns at long last to her beloved Sullivans Island. Beekeeper Holly McNee Jensen quietly lives in a world of her own on Sullivans Island, tending her hives and working at the local island library. Holly calls her mother The Queen Bee because she’s a demanding hulk of a woman. Her mother, a devoted hypochondriac, might be unaware that she’s quite ill but that doesn’t stop her from tormenting Holly. To escape the drama, Holly’s sister Leslie married and moved away, wanting little to do with island life. Holly’s escape is to submerge herself in the lives of the two young boys next door and their widowed father, Archie. Her world is upended when the more flamboyant Leslie returns and both sisters, polar opposites, fixate on what’s happening in their neighbor’s home. Is Archie really in love with that awful ice queen of a woman? If Archie marries her, what will become of his little boys? Restless Leslie is desperate for validation after her imploded marriage, squandering her favors on any and all takers. Their mother ups her game in an uproarious and theatrical downward spiral. Scandalized Holly is talking to her honey bees a mile a minute, as though they’ll give her a solution to all the chaos. Maybe they will. Queen Bee is a classic Lowcountry Tale—warm, wise and hilarious, it roars with humanity and a dropperful of whodunit added for good measure by an unseen hand. In her twentieth novel, Dorothea Benton Frank brings us back to her beloved island with an unforgettable story where the Lowcountry magic of the natural world collides with the beat of the human heart.

“The strong pull of friendship, the leisurely pace of a tiny, waterfront Southern town, and the steady buildup of romance help buoy Frank’s well-drawn, memorable characters” (Publishers Weekly) in this New York Times bestseller. Meet Linda Breland, single parent of two teenage daughters—one of whom is headed off to college. Between that and the married men, the cold New Jersey winters, her pinched wallet, and her ex-husband who married a beautiful, successful woman ten years younger than she is—let’s just say Linda has seen enough to fill a thousand pages. Now she’s bound for Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, the magical landscape of her ancestors. Welcomed by the help of her advice-dispensing sister and an intriguing ex–investment banker turned restaurant owner, Linda slowly begins to find her way and realize that she, too, is entitled to a second chance....

Hoping to sell some of her watercolors, Becca Sims wanders into the seaside Gallery Valentine, never expecting that her life will be transformed by the gallery owner and his best friend, in a novel set in small-town South Carolina. Reprint.

A Denver neurosurgeon relocates to the small rural town named after her ancestor in the aftermath of a wrongful malpractice suit to recover and reconnect with her estranged father--