South of the Buttonwood Tree by Heather Webber

Magical!

EXCERPT: It was the kind of day in Buttonwood, Alabama, where trouble slipped into town with the breeze, jarring awake sleepy springtime leaves on the massive oaks and sky-high hickories. It scraped parched dirt, sending dust skittering along the trail like it was running for cover. It whistled its warning, plain as day to anyone who cared to listen.

If anyone could recognize the cautionary tune, it was me.

I was a Bishop after all. My family name was practically synonymous with the word ‘trouble’. Daddy, Twyla, and my three brothers had embraced trouble like long-lost kin, consequences be damned. And look where that had landed them – each now dead and buried.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Blue Bishop has a knack for finding lost things. While growing up in charming small-town Buttonwood, Alabama, she’s happened across lost wallets, jewelry, pets, her wandering neighbor, and sometimes, trouble. No one is more surprised than Blue, however, when she comes across an abandoned newborn baby in the woods, just south of a very special buttonwood tree.

Sarah Grace Landreneau Fulton is at a crossroads. She has always tried so hard to do the right thing, but her own mother would disown her if she ever learned half of Sarah Grace’s secrets.

The unexpected discovery of the newborn baby girl will alter Blue’s and Sarah Grace’s lives forever. Both women must fight for what they truly want in life and for who they love. In doing so, they uncover long-held secrets that reveal exactly who they really are–and what they’re willing to sacrifice in the name of family.

MY THOUGHTS: ‘What’s that Dahl quote? ‘Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.’

I found magic in this wonderful book. By the end of the first page, I knew that I had found something special. Heather Webber, whom I have never read before, reached out and touched my heart, enchanted my mind, and kept me enamored right through to the last page.

The characters are depicted so clearly and cleverly that they are never anything less than real. ‘Sarah Grace…..if she were a book, her binding would be pristine, and her pages glued together to hide what was inside.’ ‘If there were a personification of Southern Gothic, it would be Oleta. Dressed in one of her overly starched, vintage short-sleeve shirtwaist dresses with matching pillbox hat, she was altogether nightmarish with her nearly skeletal figure, short grey hair, black eyes, sharp cheekbones, barbed tongue, and utter self-righteousness.’

The writing is gentle and enthralling. It is Southern. I could hear the characters in my mind. The story of this abandoned baby tore at my heartstrings and misted my eyes. Notice that I didn’t say ‘unloved.’ Baby Flora is loved greatly, by a large number of people.

There is a lot of love in this book. Not romance. Love. Blue’s love for this tiny baby left for her to find. Her love for her family, the notorious Bishops. Marlo and her love for her husband Moe, now suffering from dementia. And magic. The magic of love.

There is also a good dose of mystery in South of the Buttonwood Tree, and it’s not confined to the identity of the baby’s mother.

If you need a little magic in your life, or you want a wonderful read that will make you forget the current troubles in the world, this is the book that will do it.

❤❤❤❤.6

‘In the book of life, everyone has chapters they don’t like reading out loud.’

THE AUTHOR: Heather Webber, aka Heather Blake, is the author of more than twenty-five novels. She loves to read, drink too much coffee and tea, birdwatch, crochet, and bake. She currently lives near Cincinnati, Ohio, and is hard at work on her next book.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Macmillan-Tor/Forge via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of South of the Buttonwood Tree by Heather Webber for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

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