Welcome to my stop on the Little Tea blog tour sponsored by Suzy Approved Book Tours! Thank you to Suzy for the invitation!
I reviewed Claire Fullerton’s beautifully-told Mourning Dove this time last year.
About the Book:
Southern Culture … Old Friendships … Family Tragedy
One phone call from Renny to come home and “see about” the capricious Ava and Celia Wakefield decides to overlook her distressful past in the name of friendship.
For three reflective days at Renny’s lake house in Heber Springs, Arkansas, the three childhood friends reunite and examine life, love, marriage, and the ties that bind, even though Celia’s personal story has yet to be healed. When the past arrives at the lake house door in the form of her old boyfriend, Celia must revisit the life she’d tried to outrun.As her idyllic coming of age alongside her best friend, Little Tea, on her family’s ancestral grounds in bucolic Como, Mississippi unfolds, Celia realizes there is no better place to accept her own story than in this circle of friends who have remained beside her throughout the years. Theirs is a friendship that can talk any life sorrow into a comic tragedy, and now that the racial divide in the Deep South has evolved, Celia wonders if friendship can triumph over history.
My Thoughts:
I just click with author Claire Fullerton’s writing. I loved Little Tea just as much as Mourning Dove. She knows how to weave a southern tale.
Renny, Ava, and Celia have been friends since childhood, but they haven’t seen each other in ten years. They reunite at Renny’s lake house in Arkansas with much-needed time together commiserating and catching up.
Something happens that changes the tone of the weekend. Celia’s old boyfriend visits the lake house and causes the women to address the past.
Told in two timelines, the present and the 1980s, the story begins for these three friends. The deep south in which they grew up is not as pretty as it appears. Race and class issues are addressed with a profound but gentle hand.
Bottom line, I absolutely adored this story of friendship and how the remarkable bond of these strong women persevered over a long period of time.
I received a gifted copy. All opinions are my own.
About the Author:
Claire Fullerton hails from Memphis, TN. and now lives in Malibu, CA. with her husband and 3 German shepherds. She is the author of Mourning Dove, a coming of age, Southern family saga set in 1970’s Memphis. Mourning Dove is a five-time award winner, including the Literary Classics Words on Wings for Book of the Year, and the Ippy Award silver medal in regional fiction ( Southeast.) Claire is also the author of Dancing to an Irish Reel, a Kindle Book Review and Readers’ Favorite award winner that is set on the west coast of Ireland, where she once lived. Claire’s first novel is a paranormal mystery set in two time periods titled, A Portal in Time, set in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. She is a contributor to the book, A Southern Season with her novella, Through an Autumn Window, set at a Memphis funeral ( because something always goes wrong at a Southern funeral.) Little Tea is Claire’s 4th novel and is set in the Deep South. It is the story of the bonds of female friendship, healing the past, and outdated racial relations. Little Tea is the August selection of The Pulpwood Queens Book Club a Faulkner Society finalist in the William Wisdom international competition, and on the long list of the Chanticleer Review’s Somerset award. She is represented by Julie Gwinn of the Seymour Literary Agency. https://www.clairefullerton.com
Have you read Little Tea, or is it on your TBR? Happy Reading! ~ Jennifer THR
I love a good Southern tale with two timelines. 😃
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Cozynookbks, I think a dual time line is so necessary, when one is talking about long lasting, female friendships. We build such history with our life-long friends; peaks and valleys, sometimes, but there is that history that sustains it. And the South as a place is so evocative. It, too, has such rich history, which lends a particular ambience to the region. There’s a sultriness that hangs in the air!
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Love your description. Spot on. 😊
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It’s so good, Laurie! Happy weekend my friend!
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Thank you. You too, Jennifer. 🤗😘
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I read a review of this book from Shalini and it really interested me. Now that I have read your review, I am hunting this one down as well as the previous one you mentioned.
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Carhicks, thank you for making me smile!
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I’m so happy to hear that, Carla! I can’t wait to hear what you think of this special book!
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I found it on KU, so I hope to add this to my summer reads.
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Oh this sounds really good! Awesome review Jen! I’m going to follow Carla and hunt these two books down!📚🙋💜
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Great to read your comment, Susandyer1962. This is what I do: I hunt books down!
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I just snagged it On Amazon! I’m recommending my library here in Mooresville NC order all of your books!💜
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Aww! ♥️
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Thanks so much, Sus! I hope you do and can read them! ❤️ Happy long weekend, my friend!
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Dual timelines are always an element I love, and the Southern setting sounds like it made this story even better😁
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I agree with you, Tammy. With a dual time line, the reader can learn what it is that really motivates a character. So much about everyone is that which cannot be detected until we discover their “backstory.” It’s the cause that leads to the effect!
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The setting added so much, Tammy! Such a beautiful book!
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Sounds like a wonderful tale that touched your heart. Great review, Jennifer!
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Yaya, I think Jennifer is wonderfully insightful! Thank you for your comment here. You have gained a new follower!
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Thanks so much, Marialyce! It really did!
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Jennifer, thank you so much, and yes! We click!
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Absolutely my pleasure, Claire! I never would have missed it! ❤️
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So glad you enjoyed this book! And the cover really sets the tone too 🙂 Great review, Jennifer!
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Thanks so much, Jee! It was such a beautiful story and I love that cover!
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There’s nothing quite like the bond of friendship. I’ve never read a story set in Arkansas, but this book def seems to draw me in. I love stories told in two timelines!
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Greer’s Ferry Lake in Heber Springs, Arkansas is gorgeous. It’s about 3 hours outside of Memphis, where I grew up. You drive over the Memphis/Arkansas bridge, where the border between Tennessee and Arkansas is precisely half way over the Mississippi River, then drive country roads through rice and soybean fields on either side of the road until you reach Heber Springs, and there you are! 340 water-front miles of lake! People have wood houses with porches and it’s lake living at its best. This is where I set the reunion of 3 childhood friends in Little Tea,
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How beautiful! I would love to see it in person!
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I loved the setting in this one, LP! I think it was unique for me too!
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Jennifer, I wrote a small piece about the spirit behind Little Tea and put two telling pictures by it of Greer’s Ferry Lake. You can see it here: https://wordpress.com/post/clairefullertonauthor.wordpress.com/1561
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I loved this book too. ❤
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Gratitude to you, Shalini 🙂 I appreciate your kind review!
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