The Hurricane Sisters

This was an easy, breezy family tale of three generations of women in a South Carolina family, happily feuding their way through life.

Maisie, the 80-year-old matriarch, is a feisty, outspoken character who frequently clashes with her straitlaced daughter, Liz, often over Liz' daughter Ashley, a wannabe artist. Ashley falls hard for a womanizing politician at the same time Liz' marriage drifts into turbulent waters. Frank uses Ashley's romance to launch a subplot about domestic violence, and the ultimate happy-ever-after conclusion seems to come out of left field.

No brain cells were harmed in the making of this book, but it was a welcome diversion.

Read from July 09 to 16, 2014

A SLIGHT BREEZE

First things first: I LOVE Dot Frank!! I've read all of her books and own all (most in hardcover) but two of her wonderful books. DBF's books are always entertaining, humorous, and filled with lovely descriptions of the South Carolina lowcountry that make me want to pack my bags immediately and head for that south eastern shore. Frank really knows and loves that glorious piece of Heaven on Earth. But...and you had to know that BUT was coming, I just didn't get a warm fuzzy feeling when I finished Frank's latest offering. I'm one of DBF's biggest fans and it pains me to write this review in a negative light. I consider Frank's novels to be my go-to fun reads. Need a great beach read? Dot's your show more author!! Want to read great southern fiction that's light and breezy? Again, pick up any Frank book. I was really looking forward to The Hurricane Sisters but now I'm feeling a bit disappointed. Where was all the humor DBF is known for?! Frank even fell short in description. Surprisingly, I didn't feel like making a break to Sullivan's Island in a convertible. I didn't really want to hang out with the mixed up Water's clan either. Normally, DBF's characters are so great I can't help myself but fall in love with all of their warmth and crazy antics and I want to hang out. Not so much this time. As I read, I found myself anxious for the plot to move along. Was it because the subject hit too close to home? Nah! That was a long ago chapter in my storybook. Although, I do appreciate Frank's awareness on the topic of domestic violence. Maybe it will help some of her readers find the answers they seek. I hope and pray that it does. For me, it was just ok and I HATE that it was just ok because I love Dorothea Benton Frank to pieces. She's my girl!! So, instead of describing what I've read with any more negativity than I have to, let me just say it like this, read it or don't. In the meantime, I will be anxiously awaiting DBF'S next book and I hope she returns to her normal, humorous, fun-loving style. show less

Grandma who is an active 80 years old, mom who is married, and 23 year old daughter who is finding herself, all set in the contemporary low country of coastal South Carolina. Entertaining and a good light summer read. Love the character development. Touches on some contemporary social issues in a very real way.

You can always count on Dorothea Benton Frank to deliver a terrific summer read to hunker down with on the beach. Her contribution this year is The Hurricane Sisters, which once again features a gorgeous cover.

We meet eighty-year-old Maisie Pringle, celebrating her birthday with her driver-turned-boyfriend Skipper, who is a much younger (65!) man. He and Maisie are very happy together, much to the chagrin of Maisie's daughter Liz, who at first glance is kind of a stick-in-the-mud.

Liz's twenty-something daughter Ashley lives in the family's somewhat rundown beach house on an island off of Charleston, South Carolina. Ashley works in an art gallery for ten dollars an hour and aspires to be an artist and visit Rome, Paris and New York. Her show more college friend Mary Beth can't find a teaching job, so she works for a caterer and lives with Ashley.

Liz is married to Clayton, who works in finance and spends most of his week in New York City. They also have a son, Clayton, called Ivy because he is Clayton IV in the family. Ivy lives in San Francisco with his business and life partner James, and though his parents had a difficult time with the fact that he is gay (they sent him to a conversion camp when he was a teen), they all seem to have made their way back to each other.

Ashley has a crush on a state senator, Porter, who is a bit John Edwards/John Kennedy-ish. She dreams of being his Jackie Kennedy, and when she meets him at an event and they start dating, it seems that her dreams may come true.

But Porter proves to be very controlling. He tells Ashley how to speak, how to act, and is generally very critical of her. Mary Beth and Maisie warn Ashley about Porter, but Ashley makes excuses for his behavior. When one of Porter's ex-girlfriend's tries to warn Ashley, she chalks it up to jealousy until the situation worsens.

Frank tackles the issue of domestic violence here, in a manner that may surprise people. South Carolina has the highest rate of women murdered by their husband/boyfriend, and Frank shows us how insidious domestic violence can be.

It doesn't just happen to women who are trapped, have children to support and nowhere to turn. It can happen to an intelligent, educated woman from a good family who should know better because her mother works for a domestic violence program. Frank definitely gives the reader something to think deeply about, and even offers the reader a way to help at the end of the book.

Of course, she still has her fabulous sense of Southern humor. I cackle at her one-liners, like this one from Liz, who says "Let me tell you, my friend, the gene pool is a mighty big place and like they say, there's literally no lifeguard."

Frank also again has an interesting take on marriage, and how difficult it can be and how much care you must take to stay connected, like she did in her last book, The Last Original Wife. And again, I got lots of great restaurant suggestion for my Charleston Pinterest board.

There is so much in this fantastic book, told from the alternating perspectives of Maisie, Liz, Ashley and Clayton, that I would love to read a prequel, telling us more about Maisie, Liz and Liz's sister Juliet who died young. I feel there is an amazing story there as well.

The only problem with my Dorothea Benton Frank novels is that they all have sunscreen on the pages from turning them so quickly. show less

I find that Dottie Frank's books are hit or miss with me. The ones that people adore often irritate the be-jiggers out of me (it's usually the stereotypes that irk me, or mispronunciations of audio book readers, if I'm partaking of the book that way.) I do love her characters, and the insertion of local spots and faces (though now I'm worried that Martha Lou's is going to be overrun by visitors wanting to try the food, rather than us locals, who come back for more of the best southern food available.) With this book, I seem to be in the minority -- I liked it. I thought it was a decent vehicle for presenting an important message: that violence against women must stop. The women in this novel are realistic, genuine, with their own show more eccentricities and foibles. They each face a challenge in the course of the story which causes them to reevaluate, and to grow. What I liked bout this book was the reminder that what is a crisis at the moment is often just a point in a larger arc in a life-story. Life isn't always high drama, and not every hurricane makes landfall. But we do need to look out for those we love. It's never to late to try.

Tags: charleston-sc, met-the-author, read, set-in-my-stomping-grounds, set-in-the-south, thank-you-charleston-county-library show less

Story centered spousal abuse.The Hurricane Sistersby Dorothea Benton Frank (Goodreads Author) 3.49   Rating Details   12,243 Ratings   1,475 ReviewsHurricane season begins early and rumbles all summer long, well into September. Often people's lives reflect the weather and The Hurricane Sisters is just such a story.Once again Dorothea Benton Frank takes us deep into the heart of her magical South Carolina Lowcountry on a tumultuous journey filled with longings, disappointments, and, finally, a road toward happiness that is hard earned. There we meet three generations of women buried in secrets. The determined matriarch, Maisie Pringle, at eighty, is a force to be reckoned with because she will have the final word on everything, show more especially when she's dead wrong. Her daughter, Liz, is caught up in the classic maelstrom of being middle-age and in an emotionally demanding career that will eventually open all their eyes to a terrible truth. And Liz's beautiful twenty-something daughter, Ashley, whose dreamy ambitions of her unlikely future keeps them all at odds.Luckily for Ashley, her wonderful older brother, Ivy, is her fierce champion but he can only do so much from San Francisco where he resides with his partner. And Mary Beth, her dearest friend, tries to have her back but even she can't talk headstrong Ashley out of a relationship with an ambitious politician who seems slightly too old for her.Actually, Ashley and Mary Beth have yet to launch themselves into solvency. Their prospects seem bleak. So while they wait for the world to discover them and deliver them from a ramen-based existence, they placate themselves with a hare-brained scheme to make money but one that threatens to land them in huge trouble with the authorities.So where is Clayton, Liz's husband? He seems more distracted than usual. Ashley desperately needs her father's love and attention but what kind of a parent can he be to Ashley with one foot in Manhattan and the other one planted in indiscretion? And Liz, who's an expert in the field of troubled domestic life, refuses to acknowledge Ashley's precarious situation. Who's in charge of this family? The wake-up call is about to arrive.The Lowcountry has endured its share of war and bloodshed like the rest of the South, but this storm season we watch Maisie, Liz, Ashley, and Mary Beth deal with challenges that demand they face the truth about themselves. After a terrible confrontation they are forced to rise to forgiveness, but can they establish a new order for the future of them all?Frank, with her hallmark scintillating wit and crisp insight, captures how a complex family of disparate characters and their close friends can overcome anything through the power of love and reconciliation. This is the often hilarious, sometimes sobering, but always entertaining story of how these unforgettable women became The Hurricane Sisters. show less

Dorothea Benton Frank's latest release, The Hurricane Sisters, is a lovely novel set in the South Carolina Lowcountry. This heartwarming story realistically depicts the complicated family relationship between three generations of women as they deal with life's challenges.

Maisie is a feisty octogenarian who shows no sign of slowing down despite her advanced years. She is headstrong, never hesitates to express her opinion and will never admit when she is wrong. Her support for her granddaughter Ashley is unwavering despite being an ongoing point of contention between Maisie and her daughter Liz. Maisie is no stranger to sorrow and she is still haunted by the untimely death of her daughter Judith. Long widowed, her family is dismayed by show more her romance with Skipper, the fifteen years younger llama farmer her family hired to drive her around.

Liz is passionate about her career working for a non-profit domestic violence organization. She and her husband, Clayton, have begun to drift apart and she is growing weary of the lack of respect he has for her job. While she has never doubted his fidelity in the past, a few suspicions have begun to creep in lately. Liz is also getting tired of waiting for Ashley to take life more seriously and she is less than pleased when son Ivy (love how he got his nickname!) introduces his business and life partner James. In the midst of all of this turmoil, she and Maisie also butt heads until a couple of crises begin to heal the wounds of the past.

Ashley is a recent college graduate working a low-paying job at an art gallery while she works on her paintings in her spare time. She is a bit of a dreamer and a little immature. She has old-fashioned values and idolizes Jackie Kennedy. When Ashley meets State Senator Porter Galloway, she is immediately smitten and sets about fulfilling her fantasy of becoming a future president's wife. While some of Porter's behavior raises a few red flags, she ignores her instincts and stays in the relationship despite her friends' warnings that Porter is not what he seems. While Ashley is a likable character, in many ways, she seems much younger than her years and her actions put her in a dangerous situation that could have been avoided if she had listened to her intuition and her friends.

Each of the chapters is written in first person and alternate between Liz, Maisie, Ashley and Clayton's points of view. Each voice is distinct and it is very interesting to see some of the same events from different perspectives. The family is relatively close with its fair share of dysfunction and in the beginning, they are hypercritical of one another. There are the usual parent/child troubles that are fairly universal to most families but Ashley and Ivy's relationship is blissfully trouble free. The characters' unresolved issues are revealed through the various interactions and it is quite interesting to watch them work through their individual problems and in doing so, become a little kinder and more understanding of one another.

Set amidst the splendor of Charleston, beautiful sunsets and ocean breezes, The Hurricane Sisters is a relatively light read, but there are serious undertones to the overall storyline. Dorothea Benton Frank raises awareness of the heartbreaking reality of domestic abuse in a sensitive and thought-provoking manner. The family's relationships are complex and they each are facing realistic and somewhat complicated issues.

A compelling novel with a lively and vibrant cast of characters, The Hurricane Sisters is a pleasurable indulgence that should be on everyone's summer reading list. show less