Review and Blog Tour: Last Light Over Carolina by Mary Alice Monroe

The small coastal town of McClellanville, South Carolina has always relied on the bounty of the sea to sustain its citizens. Most of the residents of the town make their livings shrimping or fishing. Bud Morrison is no exception.

Bud is a third generation shrimper, going out with his dad on the boat from the time he could walk. It has been a hard-working life, but he wouldn't trade it. There is something special about working your own boat, being your own boss. Things have been going downhill for a while now, though. Foreign shrimp dumped on the market drives the prices down, regulations for shrimping hamper every catch and the numbers of shrimp are down, too. It's getting harder and harder to make a living.

So Bud is caught in a classic catch-22. He has to work more, longer hours to support his family and pay his bills. But the harder he works, the less time he spends with his wife, Carolina. She chose to marry Bud even though she knew that their lives would be full of hard work. She didn't count on their physical separation becoming an emotional one, too. Their constant battles have just about ruined their thirty year marriage. They have struggled to get back to the close relationship they had when they were first married but the strain is difficult to bear.

On the morning of September 21, Bud gets up before 4 a.m., as usual. When his cousin and deckhand fails to show up at the boat, Bud leaves without him - even though he is aware of the risks he faces going out alone. Carolina awakens with a feeling of lingering gloom that she is unable to dispel. Throughout the day, both Bud and Carolina reflect on the events that formed their relationship and their lives together.

When Bud fails to return to the the dock in the afternoon, everyone bands together to find him. Though both Bud and Carolina have lived with the dangers of an occupation at sea for many years, the actuality of a disaster brings them both to stark realizations about themselves. If they can get through this one day, they might be able to get back what they had, because now they both realize how precious it is.

Mary Alice Monroe brings to life a struggling American family in an industry plagued with hardship. I loved the way she told both sides of this couple's story, thoughtfully drawing the history as seen from each partner and weaving them together into a portrait of a marriage. The warm southern style of the narrative makes the reader feel right at home in this enjoyable novel.

Last Light over Carolina is published by Pocket Books. ISBN 978-1-4165-4970-3

I read Last Light over Carolina as part of a Pocket Books blog tour (thanks, Sarah!). Here's the list of all participating blogs:

All About {n}

Bookin’ with “BINGO”

My Guilty Pleasures

Just Jennifer Reading

Chick With Books

Bella’s Novella

Books and Needlepoint

Booksie’s Blog

Bermudaonion

Medieval Bookworm

Living Life and Reading Books

Book N Around

The Eclectic Book Hoarder

Pick of the Literate

A Book Bloggers Diary

My Friend Amy

Gaijin Mama

Blog Business World

ScarpettaJunkie’s Blog

Frugal Plus

Carolina Gal’s Literary Café

This Book For Free

Marta’s Meanderings

Review: The Devlin Diary by Christi Phillips (This is my 100th Review! YAY! Look for details of my MEGA GIVEAWAY coming soon!!)

No matter how wealthy a person might be, life in Charles II's Restoration London is still a struggle. Hannah Devlin is the daughter of two physicians and is a talented doctor herself. But she has lost so much. Her husband, her baby girl and her father, all dead in the last couple of years. And her mother has lost her mind and requires constant care. Hannah has begun to suffer debilitating headaches. Her self treatment is having limited success but she refuses to allow her own pain to interfere with her treatment of London's poor, suffering masses.

She is alarmed when she is practically kidnapped one night by Lord Arlington, the King's Secretary of State. The last thing she wants is to be brought to the attention of the powerful men who control the government and the board of Physicians. Female doctors are not allowed to practice the male dominated medical profession. Her unease grows when she is brought to the bedside of the King's most recent mistress, Louise de Keroualle, who is very ill. Hannah determines that the young woman is suffering from venereal disease and sets out to cure her, all the while trying to decipher the swirling power currents that exist within the court.

In modern day Cambridge, Claire Donovan has landed her dream job. She is to be an associate History lecturer at prestigious Cambridge University, a position that comes complete with snug quarters, meals and keys to the oldest and most interesting areas of the college. While exploring an uncatalogued collection in one of the libraries, she comes across a coded diary from 1672. It catches her interest and she shares her discovery with a fellow teacher over dinner. Turns out he is a slimy fellow teacher, he steals her idea and pursues it as his own. Claire is furious when she finds out, of course, and can't resist punching the jerk in the nose. Unfortunately his dead body turns up shortly thereafter, and he has a copied page of the coded diary in his pocket.

With the help of Andrew Kent, whom she originally met in Venice (their adventures are the subject of the author's first book, The Rossetti Letter), Claire tries to decode the diary. What information could possibly be contained within it that could inspire murder hundreds of years later?

This is a intriguing story that weaves sections of Hannah's diary in with Claire's modern experiences, with murder mysteries being solved in both time periods. The two women are both smart and confident in their professions but both have the weakness of being misled by a charming and unscrupulous man. If they could reach out and meet across the years, it feels like they would have been friends. I love the author's treatment of the value of the written word and the importance of its conservation. Here is my favorite passage from the book:

"Although she was a logical, practical person, she believed that in books there existed a kind of magic. Between the aging covers on these shelves, contained in tiny, abstract black marks on sheets of paper, were voices from the past. Voices that reached into the future, into Claire's own life and heart and mind, to tell her what they knew, what they'd learned, what they'd seen, what they'd felt. Wasn't that magic?"

Indeed it is magic! If you love historical fiction or historical mysteries, add The Devlin Diary to your reading list!

Many thanks to Sarah at Pocket Books for sending me the review copy. For more information on the author and her books, please visit her website. This review is part of a blog tour, for a complete list of the blogs participating, please click here.

The Devlin Diary is published by Pocket Books. ISBN 978-1-4165-2739-8.