Same Beach Next Year. Dorothea Benton Frank

Published:  HarperCollins
Date:  24th April 2018
Format: Paperback
Pages: 400
Genre: Southern Fiction
Rating:
                       
Purchase Links: HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

One enchanted summer, two couples begin a friendship that will last more than twenty years and transform their lives.

A chance meeting on the Isle of Palms, one of Charleston’s most stunning barrier islands, brings former sweethearts, Adam Stanley and Eve Landers together again. Their respective spouses, Eliza and Carl, fight sparks of jealousy flaring from their imagined rekindling of old flames. As Adam and Eve get caught up on their lives, their partners strike up deep friendship—and flirt with an unexpected attraction—of their own.

Year after year, Adam, Eliza, Eve, and Carl eagerly await their reunion at Wild Dunes, a condominium complex at the island’s tip end, where they grow closer with each passing day, building a friendship that will withstand financial catastrophe, family tragedy, and devastating heartbreak. The devotion and love they share will help them weather the vagaries of time and enrich their lives as circumstances change, their children grow up and leave home, and their twilight years approach.

Same Beach Next Year is part of Dorothea Benton Frank's Low Country Tales. It covers over twenty years of  two couples, their families and their relationships to each other.  It was a delightful tangled tale of love and friendship and finding out what really matters in life. The paperback of this story is out this month.

I liked all the characters and happily watched as they figured things out and grew in themselves. Well perhaps Cookie - Eve's mother, was  a bit of a basket case and trouble maker, but other than that!  Eliza is happily married to Adam, but when they meet up at the seaside with Eve and Carl she just wonders what is going on between Adam and Eve?  And Carl seems a bit of a flirt and Eliza while recognising that, also finds him attractive.

A good set up for infidelity all round you might think! But give these people time to sort themselves out and to rediscover love and true friendship and the fact that we all grow older and the next generation takes its place.

The book moves along smoothly with every so often a bump that amps up the plot and makes it that more interesting.  Adam and Eliza, Carl and Eve - they are very human, they have their faults but ... by the time the story closes they are all changed, they have weathered the challenges and come out the other end as better versions of themselves.

The setting moves from the Lowcountry of South Carolina to the Greek islands, both delightful places, contributing to the pleasure of the read.

New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank was born and raised on Sullivans Island, South Carolina. She resides in the New York area with her husband.

Find her on the web at www.dotfrank.com, or like her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.