2014 Summer Beach Reads

SPOILER ALERT!

Summertime is a time for some lazy reading... you know, those light romances that take place in or near wonderful beach places like Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, the Outer Banks, the low country (aka Tidewater region of Virginia, NC, Charleston, or along the coast of Maine. Summer 2014 was no different, and I returned to two of my favorite authors looking for some enjoyable beach reading. I've always enjoyed Dorothea Benton Frank's books because they're set around Charleston, one of my very favorite cities! Ditto with Elin Hildebrand who usually sets her stories on Nantucket. Alas, these two summer reads were mediocre at best.

Bulls Island is the story of yet another homecoming-- a local girl who leaves town and makes in big in the world on her own. At the beginning of the story she's found as a very successful executive in New York City with private planes at her disposal. her company decides to embark on a real estate development project on Bulls Island, South Carolina, and she's put in charge because of her knowledge from the area. Her anxiety rises as she knows this will force her to confront people from her past, including an old romantic love. In the meantime, she also messes around with a rough mafia gangster, and this is where I had trouble with the plausibility of the plot and Betts (the main character). As the plot comes to an end, I kept wondering how Benton Franks was going to resolve this issue with Vinnie (the gangster). Just as I thought she had forgotten about him, he surfaces but in an uncharacteristic way. Benton Franks resolves the Vinnie character, but it was somewhat lame, and just seemed out of place with the rest of the story. I give this book a 2 out of 5 stars (with 5 being the highest) because I don't think that Benton Franks developed her main character in accordance with the character's attributes as described earlier in the book, the unfolding plot seems to stall near the end, and the resolution of the Vinnie character is out of place.

A Summer Affair is just plain unsatisfying. This is the story of  red-haired and freckled Claire, a glassblowing artist, mother of four young children, and wife to Jason, a rugged, and somewhat sexist, kind of guy. She's asked to chair a local charity event, and begins an affair with the charity event's executive director. It was just hard for me to like, or feel sympathetic, to a character who is the mother of four small children who commits adultery. I know this sounds judgmental, but really? Where did she think this affair was going to go? The plot is complete with Claire facing her choices, dealing with a boorish husband, rebuilding connections with a high school sweetheart who has now become a rock star, and realizing that she needs to end her affair. I skimmed over many of the pages in this book because it just wasn't worth the time in reading in detail. I give this book a 2 out of 5 stars because it was dull. Hildebrand has done much better in other books.

Road Trip-- Day 3

Day 3—Touring Charleston

We woke up early enough to actually plan our day and book a 9:45 AM sightseeing tour with the Historic Charleston venture. Already I’ve come to love the “Darling” phrase used by everyone! People are just so nice here! So we headed across the bridge and drove to the Charleston Visitor’s Center early just to get a parking space. I have to tell you that parking is at a premium in Charleston, so anytime you can park at the Visitor’s Center parking lot for $1.50 per hour—take the opportunity!

Since the drive from Patriot’s Point across the Ravenell Bridge takes only 15 minutes, we were quite early and settled in on taking breakfast at the Charleston Tea Company across the street.

The Visitor’s Center was actually a converted railroad station. It’s now a central stop off point for visitors and tour busses, and really easy to find!

Lots of things grabbed my attention in Charleston, but most of all, I was enchanted by the verandas. House after house displayed generous verandas, and I could just imagine summer evenings rocking gently and appreciating the cool breezes coming off the ocean.

Tour over—we opted to take the free green public trolleys (aka busses) to travel freely and hop on and off as we wanted. We stopped at churches,

strolled by various legislative buildings,

and the governor’s house.

I loved the gardens and concluded it was so easy to have an impeccable garden because they were so small. Space is at a premium in Charleston, and the houses are close together with small driveways/ parking spaces for cars.

We headed back to the Rainbow Market...

 ...and grabbed a sandwich for a late lunch... I had the most delicious duck confit sandwich!



Tired, we opted to head back to Patriot’s Point and take a late afternoon nap before deciding what to do next. I took a walk along the pier and snapped these pictures of the hotel and views along the harbor.

Dinner at Sticky Fingers, and then we called the trip to Charleston a success! We were lucky in that the weather held out, and with rain and a cold front moving in, we would be heading back home just in time.

Road Trip-- Day 2

Day 2
We had breakfast at the Holiday Inn at Surfside Beach, which used to be a small community just south of Myrtle Beach, but clearly, now some developers have discovered it as well. Ed wanted to go there for breakfast because he spoke at a conference for small chemical industry people last year and it was held at this Holiday Inn.

It was a brisk and sunny morning, kicking up some foam on the beach!

Again, for me, there's nothing quite so wonderful as the feeling of sand under my feet!

After breakfast we drove down the road to see if we could find our old spring break place "Uncle Max's cabin" (because it really did belong to our kids' "Uncle Max"-- it was a rustic place but we enjoyed it immensely at the time. The area had really been renewed and in the place of the all rustic summer beach cottages were now these beautiful 3-story beach homes available for rental. I rather missed the rustic beach cottages-- guess I'm attracted to rustic!

We drove on to Charleston, which is about 2.5 hours from MB, and stopped at Boone Plantation.  

  This is a worthwhile visit because it's one of the few plantations where the slave cabins are still intact. A historic interpreter, and descendant of the Gullah people, gave a presentation/ lecture on the gullah culture.

It would be nice to gain more indepth knowledge about Gullah. I can defiitely see a weekend marathon of watching the mini-series North South on the horizon since it was filmed on Boone Plantation along with Alex Haley's Queen.

By the time we left Boone Plantation it was time to get down near Charleston and find our lodgings on Patriot's Point. Because Mapquest didn't provide the final directions for how to get there-- something I didn't discover until we were well on the road!), we went straight to the Charleston Visitor's Center to pick up a map and information.

After that we found Patriot's Point and checked in to the Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina.  

The room wasn't ready (which seems to be the norm for this place judging by the line at the desk). However, it is situated so very nicely on the Charleston Harbor with a great view!

The resort provides a free shuttle service to downtown Charleston, so we took advantage of that to explore a bit of downtown and have dinner.

Ed was in the mood for barbeque, so we found Nick's Barbeque place on King Street.

It's a cute little place for "casual" dining. I had the pulled pork sandwich and Ed had the ribs with sweet potato souffle and green fried tomatoes.

We then walked down King Street and stopped for a coffee at this cute little coffee shop...

And when I saw this...

...I finally understood why Phillip kept bringing home those coffee grounds for the composting pile.

After dinner and coffee, we enjoyed some city life by walking back to the Rainbow Market area to catch our shuttle going back to the hotel.

Well before 8 AM we jockeyed for a position on the 8 o'clock shuttle back to the hotel and were exhausted. I think we both fell asleep by 9!

Road Trip! Destination Charleston, SC!

Day 1

Road trip! While those words generally instill groans in others... for my family it instills a sense of adventure and anticipation! We always used to take road trips when the kids were little-- to visit family in Kentucky, Michigan, Cape Cod or go to Myrtle Beach.  This time it is different-- Ed and I are on a road trip with our final destination of Charleston, South Carolina.

We left the day after Easter-- and while Easter Sunday was cold, rainy, and so gloomy that I thought winter would never end, day 1 of our road trip began with sunny, blue skies, albeit a nip in the air. Traffic was jammed all the way down, and while we thought it would ease up past Washington, DC, it didn't ease up until past Richmond.

Once we got down to North Carolina I felt as though spring really was springing (but not quite sprung!). The rest area was beautifully landscaped and we could see evidence of a few flower buds just freshly bloomed here and there. Most of all, the temps were warmed and hot a balmy 70 degrees!

Travelling down this road again after so many years reminded me of how nicely the rest areas were landscaped in the true southern tradition...

...always a memorial of some kind to those who fought for our country.

Through the miracle of modern technology I also discovered that one of my colleagues from work, Debbie and her husband were also heading south on I-95 just a couple hours ahead of us going toward Savannah. Small world...

By the time we got to Myrtle Beach it was 76!!! Fabulous! We stayed at the Sheraton with a great view! The rates were affordable and the rooms generous and squeeky clean! It's a new hotel and I highly recommend it. It's only 2 blocks walking to the beach.

The view from our window...

Once we checked in at the Sheraton at the MB Convention Center, we walked off the 10 hours of driving by walking 9 blocks to a seafood place where we had dinner.

It's right on the beach, so we had a great view of the ocean. It was crowded, so just like when we were dating (so many years ago!!!) we sat and enjoyed drinks at the bar. It was worth the wait to get a table at the window, and we watched the sun go down as we ate dinner. As for the food-- the quality is really just ordinary, but the staff was hospitable.

When I finally felt the sand of the beach under my feet, I felt content and relaxed. This is MY place! Love that MB!

Looking forward to Day 2!

Review of Folly Beach

Another sweet little summer "beachy-type" novel I read during the summer was Folly Beach by Dorothea Benton Frank.

Set in Folly Beach, (which is in Charleston, South Carolina for those wo don't know), this one was a story about remembering your roots, finding your way home, and thus discovering true happiness. This novel is a bit more interesting and imaginative than most summer beachy novels because it is a story within a story... the main story of Cate Cooper, whose wealthy husband hung himself above her piano. Cate's husband, a wealthy finance guy, apparently used this as his "way out" after he was discovered to have lost, embezzled, or otherwise invested poorly everyone's money to the point where he also lost everything and thus left Cate absolutely broke.

With the help of her sister and brother-in-law, Cate travels back to her roots, her aunt's house on Folly Beach. As luck would have it, she accidentally, bumps into another car at the grovery store and meets the handsome teacher at a local private school. Cate has aspirations to become a writer, and is enchanted by the story of previous tenants of the house in which she lives. Without giving too much of the story away, let me just say that is is a good story, and worthwhile reading. The characters are very like-able, and also have been developed with some depth to their characters. Frank has developed just enough of a twist to make you want to continue reading.