Customer Reviews

Where the River Runs

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When she was growing up Meridy McFadden Dresden was a free-spirited, dare devil, fun-loving tomboy. Meridy and her two best friends grew up enjoying and living in the Lowcountry of South Carolina and all through school were inseparable busily charting out a life after college - it was all perfectly planned out. In one terrible moment all those fanciful dreams dissolved and her idyllic existence was changed in a matter of minutes with the death of her best friend killed in a tragic fire the night of their high school graduation. It was a night that changed Meridy's life.

Years later, Meridy is older, wiser and leads what appears to be a charmed life. Married to a handsome successful lawyer, she has a beautiful son with an athletic scholarship to Vanderbilt, the perfect house, and a perfectly scandal free life. Troubled, and looking for answers a trip back home would reopen wounds that had never healed as she discovered that the tragic events of that fateful night and the memories she buried along with her heart and who she was, have come back. With the help of her old Gullah housekeeper Meridy rediscovers pieces of her past and a friend who forces her to confront the pain in order to deal with the challenges she faces in her future as she summons the courage to make a decision that may destroy a life she's worked so hard to protect - including her heart.

*** As I write this review I question whether I can adequately put together the words ample enough to describe just how really great this book was. The beautiful images evoked by this authors lyrical prose and the emotional intensity of feelings she invoked are what separates writers from passable to simply outstanding and it is in this latter category that this relatively new author stands. This is simply an outstanding honest look at one woman's journey of rediscovering who she truly was as she discovered that you can return home again, especially if it means finding the most important things you seem to have lost along the way - like yourself. This is definitely recommended reading for intelligent readers who want to bask themselves in a splendidly lyrical and heart tugging read!

--- Marilyn, for www.allromancewriters.com ----

I will be the first to admit that I just love these Fiction For the Way We Live series ~~ and this one is definitely one of the best books of this fall!! I have been in a reading slump for a long time ~~ and this book really took me out of it and into a different world. I just love it!!

This book is set in the Lowcountry region between Georgia and South Carolina. The Gullah proverb: "If you don't know where you are going, you should know where you came from" is the basis of this book. Meridy Dresden finds herself at loose ends when her son, BJ, is off at college and her husband, Beau, is immersed in a trial that he has been working on for over two years. Meridy takes a trip home to Seaboro and not only was it a trip home, it was a journey to rediscover that young vibrant girl that she feared had died along with her best friend who died tragically the night they graduated from high school.

Tulu, her former housekeeper and part nanny, shared with Meridy proverbs about the Gullah culture and shared with her some stories to help Meridy find her way back to having peace within her heart. Meridy embarks on that journey with fear and trepidation after all, it could ruin everything she has worked very hard for.

This book is written with lyrical prose and lovely scene-writing ~~ it makes me keep coming back for more. It was a soothing read too ~~ in today's frantic world, this book set a slower pace and made me sit and relax. It is about a woman embarking on self-discovery, her relationship with her mother and sister, best friend and husband. It is enlightening read and very emotional in spots. It is a book that I would recommend to everyone who loves reading this kind of book. It's perfect for those long dark winter nights ahead ~~ the book is set in summer and the warmth of the novel will linger long after the last page has been turned.

10-10-05

Meridy Dresden is married to her college sweetheart and lives in an upscale home in Atlanta. She experience empty nest syndrome because their only child is at college while her spouse is busy on a case that will make him a partner in a prestigious law firm. She loves her husband, but feels disconnected from him as if their relationship is a façade.

Meridy learns from her mother that her childhood friend Tim is being asked to pay for the reconstruction of Keeper's Cottage; the townsfolk blame him for destroying it on graduation night. She returns to her hometown of Seaboro in the Low Country to set the record straight. While at home, she feels reborn as she opens up for the first since her high school boyfriend died. Now Meridy believes she owes her husband the truth about her life before him and prays he accepts and loves the real Meridy.

WHERE THE RIVER RUNS stars a beautiful woman who seems to have it all, but feels empty and only going through the motion of living. In returning to her home town, Meridy concludes that she must face all the aspects of her past that she buried even from herself if she is to become a whole person again. Fans of Anne River Siddens will want to read Patti Callahan Henry's deep character study.

Harriet Klausner

Meridy left her home in Seaboro after her high school graduation due to the death of her boyfriend in a fire started accidentally by her own actions, though no one at Seaboro seemed to blame her for it. After graduation she, her boyfriend Danny, and several friends of theirs have a party near the the old lighthouse keeper's cabin. About the time she sets off a firework that hits the cabin, a boy throws gasoline on their bonfire. The fire however was blamed on her childhood friend Tim who threw the party.

Meridy now lives in Atlanta with her husband, Beau, and her son B.J. but when she receives a call from her mother that Tim is being "persuaded" out of money to pay for reconstruction of the cabin, and somewhat accidentally volunteering herself to write a curriculum for her school about the Gullah culture, she heads home, leaving her husband to deal with a trial he's been working on for two years and the worry that he is cheating on her with the new paralegal.

Once back in Seaboro Meridy soon realizes that she does not fit into her Atlanta lifestyle. That deep down she is still the wild tomboy she once was. It takes a few trips to her old housekeeper Tulu, and time with Tim, who takes her to the spot where Danny's body was found, for her to realize this.

I've been very hesitant of Patti Callahen Henry's books as the first one I read did not do much for me. This one was an amazing book that I found myself really into. It made me laugh and made me cry. The characters are beautiful, I especially loved Tulu and Sissy. It was sad to see Tulu had died, especially after Meridy realized what she was trying to get her to understand. But in a way her death was also understandable, as it seemed she did what she tried to do, to help Meridy understand.

What was a little bothersome was the worry of Beau's cheating. It was understandable, as both Meridy's best friend was cheated on and later in the book her sister, but when Beau started to accuse Meridy of cheating on him with Tim it was getting a little tiresome. And Meridy's finally confessing about the firework just seemed to get a big brush off. But the ending left me satisfied and other than those two things I have no problems reading this again.

this book was really great. i think that it was very well written and is very enjoyable

I enjoyed the author's debut novel "Losing the Moonn" but this one disappointed me. It was very similar to her first novel....and I am frankly getting a little tired of the women "remaining true to themselves" and "first love" themes that seem to dominate every book of hers..to the point that it is getting repetetive. We get it, Patti. We women should always remain true to ourselves, and never sell ourselves short, but also never adapt, change, accomodate etc. etc. and when we "recover what we have lost"--and in many of her novels it is not quite clear what exactly these women have lost--we always need to flirt with our former lovers to do so. So please do us a favor..you write beautifully.. so why dont tackle something different for a change? There are already enough Oprah-backed authors who churn out such rediscovery stuff for women with middle-aged angst.

This book is written so beautifully that you can let your mind and hands touch the emotions she faces as a woman. It begs you to let the past (good and otherwise) open up in the light of the day. We can't change what is past, but we can use it as a way to become who we really want to be. Wannie

Patti Calhoun Henry is a talented writer. I just recently discovered her and have read everything I can get my hands on by her. I then pass them on to my niece who also loves them. A really good read---never a boring minute.

It seemed to take a long time to make a point. Well written other wize.

After reading one book by this author, I had to get all the ones she had written.