Reviews: Perennials by Julie Cantrell

by Susan Roberts

This was my first book by Julie Cantrell and I enjoyed it so much that I just ordered her older books (Donna review The Feathered Bone). Perennials is a heart- warming story about an estranged family that is trying to become a whole family again. Plus, it has beautiful descriptions of flowers and gardens - if it wasn't winter, I'd be out planting flowers after reading it.
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November 2017; Thomas Nelson
9780718037642; audio, ebook, print (368 pgs)
women's fiction

Eva (known by her family as Lovey) is 45 years old. Right after high school, she left her home in Mississippi to make a life for herself in Arizona. She is single, very successful in her advertising career and teaches yoga to seniors on the weekends. She has been hurt by her older sister, Bitsy,  and felt that her parents never took her side when they were growing up. Her parents have a 50th anniversary and they ask Lovey to come home early and spend time with them before the anniversary party that her sister is arranging. Lovey continues to be rebuffed by her sister when she tries to be friends with her again. Even when she feels that she has made progress with her sister, she turns nasty again.  Bitsy even keeps her children away from their aunt.  When Lovey looks at her life from an adult perspective, things look different than when she left at 18.  The longer she is in Mississippi, the more she learns about her parents, her sister and most importantly about herself.

This is wonderful novel about family and love and forgiveness. You CAN go home again but it's never exactly the way you remembered it from years before. Wonderful!

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About the Author

Julie Cantrell is an award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, teacher, and speaker. She has served as editor-in-chief of the Southern Literary Review and has earned starred reviews by both Library Journal and Publishers Weekly. Cantrell is a recipient of the Mississippi Arts Commission Literary Fellowship and was named a finalist for the 2017 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Fiction Award. Perennials is her fourth novel.  Website http://www.juliecantrell.com

Susan Roberts lives in North Carolina when she isn't traveling.  She and her husband enjoy traveling, gardening and spending time with their family and friends.  She reads almost anything (and the piles of books in her house prove that) but her favorite genres are Southern fiction, women's fiction and thrillers. Susan is a top 1% Goodreads Reviewer. You can connect with  her on on Facebook, Goodreads or Twitter.

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