South of Somewhere by T.I. Lowe ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

 

A young mother filled with regret returns to Sullivan’s Island to rebuild her life and finds compassion in the most unexpected places in this heartfelt women’s fiction story of self-discovery and second chances

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site.  A free book was provided for an honest review.

March 2026; Tyndale Fiction; 979-8400507816
audio, ebook, print (352 pages); southern fiction

This beautiful and emotional book is about a young woman who works hard to rebuild her life after addiction.  She wants to stay sober and regain custody of her young daughter, and there are roadblocks every step of the way that she has to overcome.

Junie grew up with her older brother, mainly taking care of her.  Their parents were researchers and were so caught up in their research that they often forgot that they had children.  The only shining light in her young life was her grandmother.  Junie began drinking at a young age, and that was soon followed by an addiction to pills.  She got married too young and had a daughter who was the love of her life.  Right after her young husband died in an accident, her beloved grandmother died.  The grief threw her into worse addiction, and she was sent to jail for driving with her young daughter in the car.  Her brother took custody of her 4-year-old daughter.  Now Junie is back at Sullivan’s Island in the house that her grandmother left her and knows that she has to fight the addiction if she ever hopes to get her daughter back.  With the constant help of her coach/probation officer, she starts going to AA meetings and finds a way to start making money using her artistic background.  But her brother doesn’t trust her at all and won’t even allow her to see her daughter. Her new friendship with a writer who lives next door helps her maintain her sobriety, as do her new friends in AA.  But will she ever convince her brother that she deserves to have her daughter back?

Junie is such a wonderful, well-written character.  She tries so hard to stay on the straight and narrow, even though it’s difficult to resist her urges to drink.  Plus, she can’t forgive herself for the mistakes that she made in the past, and doesn’t believe that anyone else will forgive her for her past mistakes. She is so complex and well-written that she seemed like someone that I knew, and I rooted for her, laughed with her, and cried with her throughout the whole book.  Her story represents the recovery story that we’d all like to see in friends and family who are in recovery.  This is an emotional look at recovery, self-acceptance, and forgiveness, and family – both family by blood and people who become family as they travel the same paths.  This book was a definite winner, and I want to read some of the author’s earlier books.

Buy South of Somewhere at Amazon

Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where she is three hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.

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