Book Review: The Tidewater Sisters

The Tidewater Sisters by Lisa Wingate is a sequel novella to The Prayer Box. At the end of the latter, sisters Tandi Jo and Gina had had a confrontation and parted ways in opposite directions figuratively.

In this new book, Tandi is busy getting the Poole house ready to become a museum as well as planning her upcoming wedding. Right in the throes of all of that she receives notice that she is being sued for fraud connected with a piece of real estate — real estate that she doesn’t even own.

Suspecting that Gina is behind it, Tandi Jo takes an unplanned trip to the Tidewater area of NC to see what’s going on. She confronts several elements of her past: her grandparents’ home, her old boyfriend, and old family secrets. She also discovers secrets that Gina has kept from her for years and tries to unravel the legal situation. How will the impact of all of that affect her future?

As this is a very short book, there is not much else to say without revealing too much of the plot. I enjoyed Lisa’s writing here, the humor tucked in places and the pathos in others. I also appreciated, if I can say this without spoiling anything, that though the sisters do eventually come to an understanding, Gina does not have her “come to Jesus” moment here. Some authors would have resolved things in that way. While I like to think that everyone, even in fiction, is a candidate for redemption, and would hope that Gina would come around eventually, realistically in life sometimes you just have to let people be who they are and move on. As Tandi says in the book, “Eventually, you must stop running to something or from something and embrace where you are. Otherwise you’ll never embrace anything.” As one line in the old hymn says, “Though none go with me, still I must follow.”

The only thing I didn’t like is that the book ended at what the Kindle app said was the 62% mark. With so much left in the book, I wasn’t expecting the story to wrap up yet, so I was surprised and disappointed and just not ready for the end. Even though the main issue was resolved, I was expecting to see the wedding. 🙂 The rest of the content is lengthy excerpts from three of Lisa’s other books, two of which I had already read and one I have on hand and didn’t want to read a preview of yet.

But overall, it’s a very enjoyable read.

Genre: Christian fiction
Potential objectionable elements: None
My rating: 9 out of 10

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Carole’s Books You Loved)

 

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