The Bookshop at Water's End Paperback – July 11, 2017

The Bookshop at Water’s End is truly a work of art, one that is good for the soul. The characters are so well-developed that they come to life and feel like friends. There is the perfect blend of drama, mystery, romance, and redemption and an abundance of “quotable quotes “ throughout. I highly recommend losing yourself in this treasure of a book!

Heartaches and starting over, long-time friendships and painful endings, and no graphic violence or explicit sex or profanity. There’s lots of kindness, forgiveness, and tense moments. Patti Callahan Henry’s usual good writing.

I love Southern fiction and have read all of Patti Callahan Henry's books and will tell you that this book was another fantastic book by a great author. I have been in a reading slump lately and this is the book that ended that slump. I thought it was Southern fiction at it's best.Bonny and Lainey had been friends since childhood when they spent three summers sharing a beach house with their families. They were now in their 50s and Bonny, an ER doc who has made a terrible mistake, begs Lainey to return to the beach house for a summer to help her decide what to do with her life. Lainey is reluctant because her mother disappeared during the last summer they spent at the beach house and she didn't think she could cope with the memories but friendship won out and she and her two children went to the beach house for the summer along with Bonny's 19 year old daughter who feels she is a failure at everything she tries to do and feels like she is being exiled to the beach because of all of the mistakes she's made in her life. Will the long summer days and the rhythm of the tides help all three women with the problems in their lives and will they be able to return to the lives they left behind?This is a beautiful written book and I can almost see the house and the river that runs beside it. Reading it made me long to see the ocean again. The characters are very well written and I loved their relationships with each other and how important that friendship was to each of them. Another great book by a fantastic Southern author

To be an Emergency Nurse physician requires finely honed skills that must occur automatically but still leave room for exceptional circumstances that just might change one’s normal protocol. So when Bonnie Blankenship’s treatment of a patient results in a disaster, she takes it very personally. Of course, she doesn’t realize that when one’s personal life is askew, automatic emotional fatigue will take its toll and thereby betray one’s usual performance. The end result is the good doctor has been ordered to go on a brief “sabbatical” until decisions at her hospital are made. Bonnie makes some immediate decisions that she believes she should have made long ago; whether they are right or wrong remains to be seen.So off to Water’s End, a small South Carolinian vacation town, she and her best friend of many years, Lainey McKay, go with their children, minus spouses. A mystery surrounding the disappearance of Lainey’s mother years ago almost stops Lainey from returning here. It also seems that Lainey’s brother, Owen, is an old flame of Bonnie who comes and goes on his own needs, even though Bonnie and Owen are in love.Bonnie’s daughter Piper is also along for the trip, albeit reluctantly. She’s got a reputation for acting out but she’s also got a secret that’s behind her excess drinking etc. Can Bonnie and Piper repair the damage of their tense relationship?This is a novel involving a bookshop where everyone winds up getting the book or hearing words most need to hear. Now, that’s truly remarkable! It sounds like a silly but wishful premise initially until the novel and conflict twists and turns progress.No, you can’t possibly predict where the complex layers of plot are going and it make the read even that more delicious!!!! You will be satisfied! Highly recommended contemporary fiction that is finely crafted!

The Bookshop at Water’s End. First of all it really bothered me that on the cover, it is spelled “Water’s End,” but in the text of the book, it is “Watersend,” which made me want to pronounce it as Water-send.While the book was somewhat enjoyable, I would not give it more than 3 stars. I kept feeling as though I had read this book before – more than once. The same basic story has been done so many times – go to a family-owned house on the beach, try to escape some tragedy in your life, search for the answer to an old mystery, and reconnect with an old boyfriend. Why is it always at the beach? I recently read Sisters One, Two, Three by Nancy Star and couldn’t help comparing the two, but I think Sisters was a better story.Bonny was a wimp – doctors are human beings and do make errors. I would hope that one error, especially when the guy could not be saved anyway, would not wipe out an entire career. Lainey couldn’t face reality, but I didn’t think the matter of her missing mother was resolved in a realistic way. Piper grew up a great deal during the course of the book, but I’m not so sure that could happen in a matter of a few weeks. Fletch was a good guy – I liked him and hope he has a future with Piper, as long as she stays straight. Lucas was a jerk, and she should never have married him. And what was the point of the author throwing in his comment about Fletch being black? Tim was a good guy and has put up with a LOT from Lainey. Owen was also a jerk who will never commit to any woman – why couldn’t Bonny find a good man? I really didn’t understand why Owen was not in contact with his sister. In most of these types of books, at least the old boyfriend is likeable – Owen is not. I liked the kids, but shouldn’t a six year old have learned not to wander off? I don’t remember George receiving any consequences for disappearing and causing the whole town to spend an entire day searching for him.I was a bit confused about the living arrangement during the three summers that the two families spent at the beach. Were they all living in the same house? And if so, why? Do I remember correctly that the two mothers were old friends? Didn’t Bonny’s mom realize that Clara had changed, had a serious problem, and maybe shouldn’t be in the same house with her own children? And if Clara was constantly drunk, stoned, or high, when in the world did she find time to make friends with Mimi and Loretta? I think that last one bothered me the most. It just didn’t seem plausible that she would have such good friends (that they would buy her a house!) after just three summers in this town. And why would these seemingly nice ladies befriend a drunk/druggie? I also did not feel that the bookshop was as important to the story as the author wants us to believe.I would classify this book as a diversion, mildly entertaining, and a good way to kill a couple of afternoons while sitting on the porch enjoying the nice weather.

This book took me by surprise as I expected a cute fluffy story. It was so much more than that with great story and it's twists and unexpected turns.

A wonderfully engaging read. I loved it.

I bought this book as a Christmas present for my wife. She has read it and enjoyed it a little. It was not her usual kind of book. She thought the characters were rather superficial and the plot quite predicable. I had seen the book recommended with some other books from USA. Perhaps it was just too American.

Good delivery time. Arrived in good condition.