The Favorite Daughter by Patti Callahan Henry @pcalhenry ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

I love reading southern fiction and Patti Callahan is a fantastic writer in this genre. She has been a favorite author since I read her first book. With her new book, she has become one of my Top 10 Authors...one of the few authors that I will pre-order their books without knowing anything about them.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

June 2019; Berkley;  978-0399583131
audio, ebook, print (368 pages); southern fiction

Lena and Hallie are sisters - very close in age and each other's best friend. They live with their parents and brother Shane in a small town in South Carolina and spend all of their time together as they are growing up. When a terrible betrayal happens on her wedding day, Lena runs away from her home and tries to live a new life in NYC. She becomes a travel writer and travels all over the world, she has a small apartment and lots of friends and boyfriends but she hasn't been part of her family or spoken to her sister in over 10 years. When her father's illness makes it necessary for her to return home, she realizes that it will be difficult to be around her sister but that she has to endure it for the sake of their father. While Alzheimer's slowly steals their father's memories, the siblings rush to preserve his life in stories and in photographs. As the family tries to create a book of memories for their father, Lena realizes that it's time for her to look at some of her old memories to see if they are true or if time has altered her perceptions and make a decision whether to be part of her family or continue her solitary life.

This is a wonderful novel. I enjoyed all of the characters, especially the father and I felt their love and concern for each other throughout the book. I hated seeing the sisters estrangement and their problems in re-connecting with each other since there was so much pain on both sides. It was very easy to be on one sister's side as the wronged person in the estrangement but once the entire story of what happened comes out, it is more difficult to take sides.  Their poor brother is caught in the middle - trying his best to put his family back together.  The other fantastic part of this novel were the settings in the South Carolina   Lowcountry and in Ireland - which are two of my favorite places to visit. The locations are described so well that I felt like I had taken a mini-vacation to both places at the end of the book.

My prediction is that this is going to be one of the very popular books of the summer. I know that it will be in my top 10 list for 2019.

Buy The Favorite Daughter at Amazon

Patti’s books include Losing the Moon, Between the Tides; Where the River Runs; When Light Breaks; Between the Tides; The Art of Keeping Secrets; Driftwood Summer; The Perfect Love Song: A Holiday Story; Coming Up for Air; And Then I Found You; The Stories We Tell; The Idea of Love, The Bookshop at Water’s End, Becoming Mrs. Lewis and The Favorite Daughter.

Susan Roberts lives in North Carolina when she isn't traveling. She and her husband enjoy traveling, gardening and spending time with their family and friends. She reads almost anything (and the piles of books in her house prove that) but her favorite genres are Southern fiction, women's fiction, and thrillers. Susan is a top 1% Goodreads Reviewer. You can connect with Susan on Facebook, Goodreads, or Twitter. 

Get even more book news in your inbox, sign up today! Girl Who Reads is an Amazon advertising affiliate; a small commission is earned when purchases are made at Amazon using any Amazon links on this site. Thank you for supporting Girl Who Reads.