Books: Shem Creek

Shem Creek: A Low Country Tale
By
Dorothea Benton Frank
Copyright 2004

Read by Sandra Burr and Dick Hill

This book is of the romance genre, I guess. It is set in South Carolina in an area I am familiar with. That always makes a book interesting to me, if I'm familiar with the setting.

Linda Breland is a single mom from South Carolina who ended up in New Jersey, divorced with two daughters. She decides to go back to her hometown. Lindsey, her eldest, will start college but Gracie has two more years of high school. Gracie is a pistol who gets into trouble a lot and probably could use some good parenting.

Brad is the owner of a restaurant where Linda gets a job as a manager after she moves. He is in the process of divorcing when his wife dies. He brings his son home to live with him. Linda gets involved and talks to him in a way I would never to speak to a boss, but then again, I'm pretty timid.

Anyway, Linda dates other guys, including Jason Miller, Gracie's new high school teacher, who is an environmentalist. Unfortunately the book takes a dim view of people who care about the environment and paints everyone who may feel that way as a terrorist or nutcase. I wasn't particularly thrilled with that aspect of the novel (being an environmentalist myself).

Linda and Brad finally figure out they should hook up, but not before Jason Miller manages to burn down the restaurant. What hijinks, eh?

The book lacked depth but the characters were okay. Linda definitely is not a thinker and I had trouble identifying with her as the main character for that reason. She seemed shallow to me but it fit with the book.

A beach read. Neither bad nor good; it is what it is.

About the audio: I would never have guessed that was Dick Hill reading. I've always thought he was a wonderful reader but this was different from anything else I've heard him read. It wasn't bad, just different.

3 stars