Where the Rivers Merge
A Novel
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
USA TODAY BESTSELLER
“Wade into the Lowcountry of South Carolina with Mary Alice Monroe's sweeping Southern epic."—People
"This is book club fiction at its finest!" —Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author
From the New York Times bestselling author, the first of two epic and triumphant novels celebrating one intrepid woman's life across multiple generations in the American South.
1908: The Lowcountry of South Carolina is at the cusp of change. Mayfield, the grand estate held for generations by the Rivers family, is the treasured home of young Eliza. A free spirit, she refuses to be confined by societal norms and spends her days exploring the vast property, observing wildlife, and riding horses. But the Great War, coastal storms, and family turmoil bring unexpected challenges to Eliza, putting her on a collision course with the patriarchal traditions of a bygone era.
1988: At 88, Eliza is the scion of the Rivers/DeLancey family. She’s fought a lifetime to save her beloved Mayfield and is too independent and committed to quietly retire and leave the fate of the estate to her greedy son. She must make decisions that will assure the future of the land and her family—or watch them both be split apart.
Set against the evocative landscape of the twentieth-century Lowcountry, Where the Rivers Merge is a dramatic and sweeping multigenerational family story of unyielding love, lessons learned, profound sacrifices, and the indomitable spirit of a woman determined to persevere in the face of change in order to protect her family legacy and the land she loves.
“With elegant prose and an embracing heart, Mary Alice Monroe has written an epic tale of the place where the soul of nature and the soul of a unique woman converge." —William Kent Kruger, New York Times bestselling author of The River We Remember
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Monroe serves up a pleasing paean to rural life in South Carolina in the first of two planned novels about the history of a white family's plantation. In 1988, Eliza Rivers Chalmers DeLancey, 88, intends to put the remaining thousand acres surrounding Mayfield, her ancestral home, into a conservation easement to protect its legacy. Her son, however, wants to develop the property. To help ensure Mayfield's future, Eliza shares the property's history with her 18-year-old granddaughter, Savannah, and her grand-niece, Norah, who is also her childhood friend Covey's granddaughter, hoping the younger generation will carry out her wishes. Eliza begins the story in 1908 when she loved hanging around the stables where her father started breeding Marsh Tackys, a hardy horse native to South Carolina. Her tomboy nature upset her mother, as did her friendship with Covey, a Black girl who lived with her father on the property. In telling her story, Eliza endears herself to the two younger women and to the reader by sharing her indomitable spirit along with tidbits about native insects, animals, and landmarks. The author's fans will find much to admire.
