Debutantes

I haven’t read a book that features a debutante in a while.  In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book that’s featured a debutante.  This month I have found myself reading two such books.  I’m not sure if it’s a new trend or a coincidence but let me tell you about both of them. 

Girls in Trucks is the first novel by Katie Crouch.  Sarah Walters is a debutante in Charleston, SC.  We follow her from Cotillion Training School in the seventh grade, through her debut at eighteen and the next 17 or so years of her life.  Sarah, as the cover reads, is a debutante of questionable manners.  She heads to New York for college and continues to stay there even after she graduates.  With every trip home she is less at ease and she never really thinks of South Carolina as home again.  Sarah is an interesting character and Ms Crouch skims her life, from man to man and job to job.  The end of the book is clearly not the end of Sarah’s life, she has miles to go before she is done but there is a perception that she is on the right track.

The Ex-Debutante by Linda Francis Lee is a much lighter book with humor and romance and ridiculous family situations at every turn.  Carlisle Cushing the ex-debutante is now almost thirty and has moved away from Willow Creek, Texas, as much to run away from her past as she is running away from her family.  She is from one of the best families in town and is tired of having her every move discussed.  She takes her new law degree and goes to Boston.  There she allows everyone to think she is a poor hick who has pulled herself up by her “bootstraps”, enjoying the anonymity that comes from being like everyone else.   When her mother’s fifth marriage falls apart, she insists Carlisle come home and represent her in the divorce proceedings and while she’s home she agrees to take over this year’s crop of dubious debs and meets up with an old boyfriend that she’s never quite forgotten.  This is a fun read with good characters and a “happy” ending.

Karen – Fort Mill                   Girls ISBN 9780316002110      Ex ISBN 9780312354961

 

 

Bulls Island by Dorothea Benton Frank

Betts and JD were childhood sweethearts and both from old southern families in Charleston .  Once they announce their engagement—tragedy strikes, lives are changed, the engagement is broken and Betts runs away to New York .  Twenty years later, Betts returns to Charleston under duress.  Her job as a top investment bank executive leads her back to Charleston to work with JD on a development project on Bulls Island . She hasn’t returned to Charleston or seen JD since she left.  Betts is estranged from her family.  Emotions run high—Betts will struggle with revealing a secret that could threaten everything that is important to her. This is a great story with romance, family honor and southern wit and a crazy gator to boot! This is Dorothea Benton Frank at her best!

 

Robin – Lake Wyllie                                    ISBN 9780061438431