The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
At Madeline's Tea Salon, the cozy hub of the Avalon community, six women find their memories are shaping their future.
Young Connie Colls, fiercely independent and full of promise longs for a past she never had. Isabel Kidd is anxious to move forward but is still paralysed by the consequences of her late husband's love affair. After spending many years living a life on her own terms, Yvonne Tate finds that she can't outwit her past. For Ava Catalina, reaching out to hold on to precious memories means rekindling old hurts while Frances Latham sees her dream for a daughter dashed when tragedy strikes. And then there's irascible Bettie Shelton, founder and president of the Avalon Scrapbooking Society, who helps others create lasting memories of their past but finds the pages of her own albums empty. As the women gather to scrapbook the details of their lives, they discover that things are not always as they seem.
By turns humorous, wise, and deeply moving, The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society is a luminous reminder that the things we hold most dear will last a lifetime.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Revisiting the busybody river town of Avalon, Ill., Gee (Friendship Bread) pens another sentimental ode to the domestic arts and their power to save women in crisis. "Scrapbooks are about memories," Bettie, president and founder of the Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society, preaches to reluctant newcomers Connie, Yvonne, Ava, and Frances, each wrestling with painful pasts and uncertain futures. Orphan Connie, part of the kitchen help at Avalon's must-meet-and-eat spot, Madeline's Tea Salon, lets a troublemaking goat named Serena show her that home is where the heart is. Yvonne, one-time society dame who now works as a plumber, turns her back on a villainous family and rediscovers a lost love. Ava, the insecure single mother of a young son, the product of an affair with a married man, finds the courage to reconcile with the woman whose home she wrecked. And the unconditional love of Frances's family helps her accept the daunting challenge of adopting a baby with a disability. But it's Bettie's heartbreaking battle with her failing memory that brings the women and the town of Avalon together to cherish both her and their past in a three-hanky nod to It's a Wonderful Life. Gee who also writes as Mia King (Table Manners) gets the unapologetically schmaltzy tone just right with the irresistible premise that we can love the impossible. A surefire book club hit.
