Return to Sullivans Island

It was impossible to remember how gorgeous the Lowcountry was. It never changed and everyone depended on that.

Newly graduated from college, Beth Hayes has worlds to conquer. But her grand ambitions are put on hold when she's elected by the family elders to house-sit the Island Gamble—ghosts and all.

But there is much about life and her family's past that Beth doesn't understand. And her plans to rest and rejuvenate—to bask in memory and the magic of white clapboards and shimmering blue waters—begin dangerously unraveling when she falls in love.

Still, everything here happens for a reason—and disappointment, betrayal, even tragedy are more easily handled when surrounded by beloved family and loyal friends.

Publishers Weekly

Frank (Sullivan's Island) creates a world in which aspiring writer Beth Hayes, whose chirpy internal monologues and quiet uncertainties make her easily endearing, is as much a character as the house she lives in. After graduating from college in Boston, Beth returns to the South to spend a year house-sitting her family's home, Island Gamble, while her mother, Susan, visits Paris. Frank's portrayal of a large and complicated family is humorous and precise: there's Susan, adoring and kind; Aunt Maggie, a stickler for manners; twin aunts Sophie and Allison, who run an exercise-and-vitamin empire; and uncles Timmy and Henry, the latter of whom has ties to Beth's trust fund. Frank's lovable characters occasionally stymie her pace; there's almost no room left for Beth's friends or her love affairs with sleazy Max Mitchell and cherubic Woody Morrison, though these become important later on. Frank is frequently funny, and she weaves in a dark undercurrent that incites some surprising late-book developments. Tight storytelling, winsomely oddball characters and touches of Southern magic make this a winner. (July)

The South Carolina coast forms a lush backdrop for Dorothea Benton Frank's tales of cheatin' husbands, nosy neighbors, and nutty families. But don't let the sand and palm trees fool you: Frank's very funny novels are smarter than the average beach read.