About the Book:
USA Today best seller Hurricane Season is the story of one family’s unconventional journey to healing — and the relationships that must be mended along the way.
Betsy and Ty Franklin, owners of Franklin Dairy Farm in southern Alabama, have long since buried their desire for children of their own. While Ty manages their herd of dairy cows, Betsy busies herself with the farm’s day-to-day operations and tries to forget her dream of motherhood. But when her free-spirited sister, Jenna, drops off her two young daughters for “just two weeks,” Betsy’s carefully constructed wall of self-protection begins to crumble.
As the two weeks stretch deeper into the Alabama summer, Betsy and Ty learn to navigate the new additions in their world — and revel in the laughter that now fills their home. Meanwhile, record temperatures promise to usher in the most active hurricane season in decades.
Attending an art retreat four hundred miles away, Jenna is fighting her own battles. She finally has time and energy to focus on her photography, a lifelong ambition. But she wonders how her rediscovered passion can fit in with the life she’s made back home as a single mom.
When Hurricane Ingrid aims a steady eye at the Alabama coast, Jenna must make a decision that will change her family’s future, even as Betsy and Ty try to protect their beloved farm and their hearts. From the author of the USA Today best seller The Hideaway comes a new story about families and mending the past.
My Comments:
I'm usually a reader, not a listener but I had a dental appointment this week and picked out this gem from Hoopla to listen to while my teeth were being drilled. Of course that only lasted long enough to get me really interested in the book. I considered finding the written version so I could read it, but I was enjoying the audio, so I kept listening. Slowing down like that and letting the descriptions and feelings hit me and surround me rather than speeding past them as a read makes the book a totally different experience.
Jenna and Betsy are sisters and were there for each other when their self-involved parents were not. Jenna got pregnant young and shelved her photography dreams to get a sensible job and support her two girls. Betsy met the love of her life, a farmer, when she was in college and gave up a promising advertising career to marry him and live on the family farm. Betsy's life lacks only one thing--a child--and she has let her desire for a child color her life and pull her away from her loving husband. Then one summer Jenna is offered the opportunity to attend an artists' retreat and she asks Betsy to keep the girls.
As those of us who live on the Gulf Coast know, summer, particularly late summer, is hurricane season. Hurricane Delta is in the Gulf as we speak and like other Gulf Coast residents, my family has been watching the news and making or breaking plans for the weekend. We have our rituals, our chores that need to be done. So do the characters in the book. I think the title also refers to the hurricanes going on in the sister's lives. For better or worse when a big storm comes through, things change. As a result of Hurricane Laura, my daughter's boyfriend is working in Lake Charles--but he is working and collecting a paycheck, which he had not been doing since he was laid off at the beginning of the pandemic. Because of both Laura and Delta, people in West Louisiana have suffered great losses. Because of the hurricanes, people in west Louisiana will be the recipients of love and generosity from people across the country. Because of the wind that blew through their lives that summer, neither sister will ever be the same.
I'll definitely look for other books by Lauren Denton, and who knows, I may even listen to them. Grade: B+
No comments:
Post a Comment