Book Review of Queen Bee by Dorothea Benton Frank

 

Queen Bee

by Dorothea Benton Frank

My thematic book club selected the theme of “Queen” for May. I ran a little late in picking my book so I decided to grab an audio book from our Hoopla catalog that I could listen to on my commute. (Most books run 8 to 14 hours on audio so I can easily listen to it during the course of my weekly commute.) I did a quick search for the term Queen and scrolled down the list looking for something that would catch my interest.

My eyes alighted on Queen Bee by Dorothea Benton Frank. I have adored Frank’s writing since her first published novel, Sullivan’s Island. I have read at least half the novels she wrote but lost track of her at some point.

The atmosphere of the low country, the islands on the coast of South Carolina, the use of language, the characters, which are so real and far from perfect people, and the mystery just made for a perfect read for me.

I downloaded the audio book and started it in the car that night. By the time I got home, I was so hooked that I downloaded the ebook so I could keep reading that weekend.

In Queen Bee, Holly Jensen is a dutiful southern daughter, living with her mother, who she and her sister refer to as the QB (Queen Bee), to help care for her as she has grown into something of a hypochondriac.

Holly occupies her free time with tending her bees, volunteering at the local library, occasional substitute teaching as she tries to get a full-time job teaching at the elementary school, helping the widower and his two small boys next door, and then she gets a job decorating cakes at the local Publix store.

The truth is Holly has a very severe crush on the next door widower, Archie. But even as she is taking care of his two sweet young boys after school and bringing them meals, he goes out on a blind date with someone else. Someone horrible. What to do? Hold on for the roller coaster ride.

Then Holly’s sister, Leslie, returns home in tears when her accountant husband of six years reveals a hidden dream of his own to become a drag queen star in Las Vegas. (This is a fantastic story line that I did not see coming and Frank takes it in totally unexpected and beautiful directions.)

Meanwhile, Holly and Leslie’s mama, the QB, falls out of bed twice and gets taken in for some scans which reveal that she is not quite the hypochondriac the girls assumed. Again, unexpected twists and turns abound as the story unfolds in a beautiful way. Have your tissues ready.

Frank’s books are a truly immersive reading experience, transporting you to a different location. Just sitting here writing this review, I feel like I fell back into the book and traveled miles away.

I’ve already picked out another book by Frank and am listening to that one, All the Single Ladies. Sadly, Dorothea Benton Frank passed away in 2019 but, fortunately, she left us twenty wonderful novels to read and listen to.

One of my treasured possessions is a book of Frank’s that my sister had her sign for me, a copy of Pawley’s Island. In it, she wrote, “Dear Michelle, If I can do this, so can you. Keep writing! Dottie.” So sweet and full of the characteristic style of having her female characters prop each other up.

I was just thinking I might go back and listen to someone read Sullivan’s Island, if I can find a good recording of it.

It’s perfect summer reading.

Summer Reading - The Last Original Wife by Dorothea Benton Frank

The Last Original Wife
By Dorothea Benton Frank

 

Dorothea Benton Frank has become one of my favorite authors for summer reading. She came to my attention over 10 years ago when my sister shared the first Lowcountry novel, Sullivan's Island. Part mystery, part Chick Lit, it introduced the author's main setting and theme – the Lowcountry of South Carolina and a woman in her prime facing a life changing circumstance of some kind. The woman typically heads home, to the Lowcountry, to find the emotional fortitude to face her situation.  The Lowcountry of South Carolina is also often reflected in the titles– Sullivan’s Island, Plantation, Isle of Palms, Pawley’s Island, and Folly Beach.

Leslie Anne Greene Carter is the main character of Frank's latest novel, The Last Original Wife. An unusual facet of this novel is that it's told in alternating chapters from Leslie and her husband, Wesley.  It is heavily weighted toward Leslie’s point of view but we also get Wesley's point of view and get to see how it changes over the course of the book.  Wesley may be "the bad guy" but he's not a totally bad guy and he grows over the course of the novel, just as Leslie does.  Unfortunately for the marriage, they are growing apart.

The novel starts out at the offices of a high priced therapist in Atlanta where a woman begs Leslie to sell her Leslie’s time with the therapist after finding her husband in bed with two of his daughter’s teenage friends.  Leslie tells her she can have the session if Leslie can have the name of the woman’s plastic surgeon and, by the way, divorce the bastard.  “Take all his money.  Every last nickel.  None of that divide by two bullshit.”  They exchange cards and the woman decides she doesn’t need the session after all.

Leslie and Wesley's own inciting incident is a vacation to Edinburgh, so Wesley can play golf, where Leslie ends up falling through an open man hole while taking pictures.  Wesley doesn’t notice until twenty minutes later when he gets back to the hotel with his friends.  Wesley blames Leslie for her accident and Leslie is angry at Wesley for leaving her alone in the hospital with his friend’s new young wife while he goes golfing. I suppose if falling in a manhole and breaking your teeth and arm as well as gaining numerous cuts and bruises while your husband walks on doesn't wake you up, then nothing will.

Leslie decides it's time to take an extended vacation down to see her brother, Harlan, in Charleston. There she reconnects with an old flame, and reads up on Josephine Pinckney, who owned the house where Leslie's brother lives. She is called home when Wesley is diagnosed with cancer and she agrees to go take care of him during his biopsy surgery. Wesley tries to convince her to come home permanently and the novel comes full circle to visit the therapist we saw in the beginning.

This novel is sort of like a gossip session with girlfriends that you don't have to feel guilty about because the characters only exist in the book. There's a lot going on. Light, but not too light, a perfect summer read. Enjoy!

Folly Beach: A Lowcountry Tale ~ Dorothea Benton Frank

Folly Beach: A Lowcountry Tale
By Dorothea Benton Frank

I must admit that I’m only a little more than halfway through this book but I have been enjoying it and I wanted to share one of my favorite authors, Dorothea Benton Frank. What I love best about her books are their great sense of place, Carolina Lowcountry, and the vivid characters. Folly Beach does not disappoint.

Cate Cooper’s husband has recently committed suicide, leaving her to face the lies that their life was built upon – a house mortgaged to the hilt, incredible debt, a business that is pretty well sunk and a child by another woman. Cate finds out that even her engagement ring diamond is a fake. She decides to go back to the Lowcountry of South Carolina, to Folly’s Beach. Aunt Daisy, who practically raised her, is in need of a little help herself.

A couple things did bother me with this book. Early on, the narrator recalls, “We were gathered in the most inclement conditions February in New Jersey could offer to bury Addison, my husband of too many years.”

No, you weren’t, because the most severe conditions available in February would be a blizzard and you definitely wouldn’t be in a cemetery burying someone under those circumstances. You might not be on any other day in February. The ground is usually rather frozen and the deceased is often kept in storage until the ground can be dug for burial.

Perhaps we could put this down to the character’s tendency to dramatize but I don’t feel like that’s established on page 7 or that it is ever that severe again. I’d say it’s a matter of someone writing about a setting they aren’t very familiar with. Disconcerting but the premise was interesting, so I kept going and thankfully she moves South to familiar territory very soon.

The other minor problem I had was that the story is told in alternating chapters. One chapter is told from Cate’s perspective and the next is told from the imagined perspective of a play Cate writes about Dorothy Heyward. (Cate ends up staying in the house where Dorothy and Dubose Heyward once lived on Folly Beach in South Carolina and becomes very interested in them.) I enjoyed the two lines of story equally but found it a bit distracting, or perhaps annoying would be more accurate, to flip back and forth. It might not have bothered me so much if my reading wasn’t already disjointed by the pockets of time I have to read. I only get to read two chapters at a time and so I never get to read much of each story line in one sitting.

These are minor details though and haven't kept me from reading and enjoying Folly Beach. I also did a little checking on the Porgy House, where so much of the action takes place that it almost becomes another character. I came across an article from the Charleston Post and Courier which describes the Porgy House and shows photographs after it was purchased and restored in the late 90's. (Porgy House Available for Tours on Folly Beach) I do love it when history comes to life.

I can’t say that I’ve enjoyed each of Dorothea Benton Frank’s books equally, or that this is even my favorite, but the characters are always engaging and the setting is usually vividly depicted in her Lowcountry books. I’d highly recommend her first, Sullivan’s Island, but all of the books are stand alones. They are addicting, dramatic and highly entertaining – the best of Chick Lit. Not quite a soap opera, more like a girlfriend telling you ALL about her life.