Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Publisher: Harper Torch / HarperCollins
Release Date: June 1998 - reprint
ISBN:
0-06-109921-X
Awards:  
Format Reviewed: Paperback
Buy it at Amazon
Read an Excerpt
Genre:   Fiction / Literary Romance
Reviewed: 2004
Reviewer: Jo Rogers

Reviewer Notes:  contains foul language and sexual scenes

Holiday: both Thanksgiving and Christmas are covered here

Copyright MyShelf.com

Up Island 
By Anne Rivers Siddons

   Up Island is Anne Rivers Siddons newest book. It is the story of Molly Bell Redwine, a middle-aged Southern woman. Molly has been taught that her family is everything. Suddenly, however, her husband leaves her for a younger woman, a lawyer he met at work. Her daughter is married and living in Memphis, and her son is going away to college. Except for her parents, Molly has been cut loose from the family that anchored her for so long.

   Before she can decide whether or not to give her husband a divorce, her mother makes plans to get him back. For some reason, Molly becomes enraged and lets the anger spill out onto her mother. Before she can apologize, however, her mother has a stroke and dies. Her brother, always her mother’s favorite, blames Molly for their mother’s death. All she has now is her father. Then, he, too, decides to go away and leave Molly by herself.

   Livvy, Molly’s best friend in Atlanta, talks Molly into taking some time off and going with her to the house Livvy and Caleb own on Chappaquiddick Island just off Martha’s Vineyard. There, Molly enters a whole new world. She finds the possibility that life can exist without family.

    Up Island is not an average romance. It doesn’t interest you in reading it, it compels you to read it. One is helpless to stop, even if one is not fond of romances. Siddons’ characters are alive and you feel their pain, their joy, their shock and dismay and their love. We also get a feel for Martha’s Vineyard, especially the area they call up island. Pick up a copy of Up Island. This is a compelling story you will not soon forget.