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38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love finding this new author, July 19, 2007
This review is from: Between The Tides (Mass Market Paperback)
Between the Tides is my first novel by Patti Callahan Henry--and it won't be the last. I intend to devour them all. Her novels are `real life' stories with fully developed characters with problems experienced by many of us at one time or another. Her prose is lyrical and so vivid you actually visualize her settings and can smell the air and sea of the low country of South Carolina. I found myself rereading passages because they were so beautiful or because I found them profound in their simplicity.
Catherine Leary's father died and his last request was that his ashes be scattered in the Seaboro River in South Carolina. The last place Catherine wants to visit is her hometown and the Seaboro River. At age twelve her life changed following an accident she has always felt responsible for--and she doesn't want to revisit the intense pain.
Forrest Anderson, Catherine's former boyfriend and friend of her professor father, is writing a tribute to Catherine's father. To get a better feel of him and his life, Forrest intends to travel to Seaboro. Catherine doesn't want Forrest to expose her personal tragedy and accompanies him to her hometown in order to control his information.
The journey becomes more than Catherine anticipated as she learns things about her family, their friends and herself that she never knew. And along the way she reconnects with the life she loved and left and learns to love and forgive herself and others.
Armchair Interviews says: Highly recommended!
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
warm character study, June 10, 2007
This review is from: Between The Tides (Mass Market Paperback)
In Seaboro, South Carolina twelve year old Catherine "Cappy" Leary plays with the neighbors especially thirteen year old Boyd Loughlin. That is until Boyd's two year old brother Sam accidentally dies. Cappy blames herself after overhearing Boyd tells his mother she was watching Sam. At that time she did not know it, but her childhood ended; she did believe no good thing will come her way for the negligence death of little Sam.
Nine months have passed since her father died, but Catherine has failed to complete his final request. However, her father's protégé Forrest Anderson informs her he plans to honor her father in a memorial article he is writing. Catherine fears what he will learn in Seaboro so on her thirtieth birthday she returns to Seaboro for the first time since the tragedy that traumatized her. Her goals are to honor her late father by scattering his ashes as he requested and to prevent Forrest from revealing Leary family secrets though deep down in her soul she would not mind making new secrets with him.
BETWEEN THE TIDES is a warm character study of a woman that has spent two-thirds of her life believing her negligence led to the tragic death of infant Sam. and that led her to conclude that she is worthless. Her return to Seaboro to accomplish her two missions provides Cappy with an opportunity for a renewal of her spirit and a second chance to live life to the fullest and not in the shadows. Readers will enjoy this fine tale as the lead protagonist after eighteen years at ebb tide is relearning to enjoy the waves.
Harriet Klausner
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Thoroughly Enjoyable Read, June 3, 2008
It is perhaps the quickest read of this year. I read this in two and half hours. I've read her other books and this one is not as good as her others, but it still provides a delightful read. This book will definitely appeal to the booklover in you, filled with lots of quotes and titles of books that the main character's dad had talked about. It is just perfect to kick off summer vacation with!
This book focuses on Catherine "Cappy" Leary, whose life changed drastically in her twelfth summer in a tragic accident. After the accident, her family uprooted and moved back to her parents' hometown within a very short period of time. Catherine grieved all those years blaming herself for the family move as well as for the tragic accident. She had given up her "second mother," a warm and vibrant woman named Ellie, who was married and had two boys, Boyd and Sam. Catherine had a loving relationship with her father and a distant one with her mother. She had a best friend named Piper and life was just bursting at the seams. Then tragedy hit and it hit hard.
Now that Catherine is thirty years old and an orphan as her father had died nine months previously. In his will, he stated he wanted his ashes scattered over the river in that little South Carolina town that she had grown up in. Returning to the town that she has never forgotten, Catherine meets her past and learned the dark secrets that were her dad's and others'. Even at the age of thirty, it is never too late to grow up. In the process, she realizes the truth about herself and the truth about her father's protege, Forrest, whom she used to date years before she started dating the college basketball recruiter.
The story is choppy in places and the ending is too rushed, but other than that, it provided a wonderful story for a stormy night. It is definitely a quick read and a delightful one.
6/3/08
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