Customer Reviews

Bed & Breakfast

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There is always the book that you can't discard even when you clean off the shelves to make room for new books. This is one of those books because you will always remember it as a pleasant experience-- you will truly enjoy this one!

I found this novel engaging and pleasant to read, in the spirit of other Southern writers such as Anne River Siddons. Ms. Battle's explorations of a troubled mother and her adult daughters, intensified by the anxieties of the Christmas holidays, kept me turning the pages at a fast clip. I feel, however, that if Ms. Battle had deleted some of the characters--even one of the three daughters--and more fully developed the others, the novel would have been deeper and more thoughtful.

I bought this book because I like the author (and she comes from my home town in Australia). This book is reminiscent ( in parts) of Gail Godwin's "A Mother and Two Daughters", though is more superficial and therefore easier to read. I enjoyed it, but think certain characters were not developed enough (youngest daughter, boyfriend , granddaughter etc). On the whole, an interesting glimpse at a daughter trying to escape the confines of her cultural heritage and her mother's coming to terms with mortality and attempts at reconciling a fragmented family.

At one time I identified with Josie, the mother, and at another, with Lila, one of the daughters. Having reared four children in the south, I can tell you Ms Battle has wonderful, believable characters. I will recommend this book for the October selection for my book discussion club.

Too many characters in too short a book leave the reader wishing for more depth -- the book jumps from mother Josie to the two older daughters, Cam and Lila, and never focuses on third daughter Evie at all -- but the story rings TRUE. As an Army brat (I even spent a good part of the summer of 1963 in Beaufort, SC, where the story is set), I can hear the truth in every line of dialogue between Josie and her war-hero husband, Bear. It's much more a story of a military family than it is of a Southern family, for all of the local color, but it's well worth a first, second, or even third read.

Josie Tatternall's husband, Bear, was a career military man. The Tatternalls had three daughters - Camilla, Lila and Evie - but Bear was gone so much, Josie basically raised them by herself. Josie always longed for some stability, so when Bear retired, she insisted on buying her dream home. When Josie is widowed, she is forced to turn her home into a Bed and Breakfast to make ends meet.

Josie is a wonderful hostess, so her business is a success. She has good friends, but her relationship with her grown daughters is strained. Camilla is in New York and hasn't been home in ten years, Lila does touch base from time to time out of a sense of duty and Evie writes a column for the paper that shares all the details of her private life.

When the family gets together for Christmas, tensions come to a head. Lila does something she could live to regret, Evie becomes a little too friendly with Lila's father-in-law, and Camilla leaves in a huff because of something Lila does. Will the Tatternalls ever mend fences and learn to get along?

Bed and Breakfast by Lois Battle is the story of the dysfunctional Tatternall family. The story is character driven and I wasn't crazy about most of the characters, so the book was just okay for me. Camilla, Lila and Evie seemed so selfish and self-absorbed to me - I just wanted to shake them and tell them to grow up already! Maybe that was the point of the story, but I found it frustrating. Nothing was revealed in the story to justify the way these women acted toward their family - I just didn't get it. Maybe I live in a dream world, but the members of my family don't act like that. There were also quite a few typos in this book, which I found distracting.

Very wonderful writing technique. Lois Battle knows the "true" southern woman. I would highly recommend this book to any woman to read. It will well up all kinds of emotions from your younger days and make you cry. It was really good. Couln't wait for the next chapter.

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. It's a quick read and got better as I got farther into it. Josie is a captivating heroine. She's had an interesting and sometimes difficult life as a military wife -- her husband reminded me of a Pat Conroy character -- but she hasn't allowed life to beat her down. But my favorite character is Cam, her oldest daughter. I loved their relationship and the way it developed and changed in the book, and I also enjoyed the prickly relationship between Cam and Lila. Battle writes character-driven books about the kinds of people we all know. I'm looking forward to reading more of her work. RECOMMENDED.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story! The SC Low Country setting oozed with Southern charm. The characters were interesting, well-drawn, and inspired empathy. I especially like the author's descriptive style of writing, and prolific use of colorful adjectives, allowing me to visualize the details as I was reading it. I also liked how Part Two was presented in flashback, detailing the resolutions of the issues that evolved in Part One.

I really enjoyed this book. It had an engaging storyline and the dynamics between the mother and her daughters, as well as the relationships between the sisters themselves, were quite believable and sometimes too close to home. The youngest sister, however, was not as developed a character as she should have been - she was mostly ignored by the author and was an incidental character. The southern locales in the book are interesting, and I was initially drawn to the book by its title, as I own a bed and breakfast, although not in the same circumstances as Josie in the book. Her nemesis guest made me chuckle - I know that woman! I highly recommend this book as a good rainy afternoon read; happy endings earn my recommendation, and I don't think my saying it ends happily will spoil the reader's enjoyment of Bed & Breakfast.