For three magical summers when they were young, Bonny Moreland and Lainey McKay were the Summer Sisters: best friends whose families spent long, languid weeks together in tiny Watersend, S.C., between the river and the sea. The women have remained close, building successful careers and families, though both are haunted by the long-ago night of Lainey's mother's disappearance from Watersend. When Bonny's life erupts in personal and professional crisis, she flees her Charleston home for the river house and begs Lainey to join her. With Bonny's college-age daughter Piper and Lainey's young children in tow, the friends must face the ghosts of the past and decide how to shape their futures.
Patti Callahan Henry (The Idea of Love, The Stories We Tell) weaves a rich narrative of deep friendship and long-buried secrets in her 12th novel, The Bookshop at Water's End. The plot focuses on Bonny, Lainey and Piper, although Henry also elaborates on the community of Watersend, including the titular bookshop and its owner, Mimi, who carries a few secrets herself. Henry expertly braids together the women's stories and struggles: Piper's deep fears and insecurities, Bonny's anguish at accidentally causing a patient's death in the ER, Lainey's grief over her mother's disappearance. For all of them, love and forgiveness--though not an instant cure--will prove to be the way forward.
Steeped in its Southern setting and full of charm and quiet wisdom, The Bookshop at Water's End is a satisfying story of friendship, grace and beginning again. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams