My Magnolia Summer

May 1, 2023
A 29-year-old Manhattan chef who returns home to Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, when her restaurant-owner grandmother is in a car accident ends up staying for the summer. Magnolia Adams' grandmother Rose is her beacon: the light by which she sees the world. After years of prioritizing her own goals of being a chef and working in New York, trying to make her way in the restaurant world, all she has to show for it are a poorly paid job where she is not treated well and an on-again, off-again open relationship with co-worker Ronny. The one highlight is that she lives with her best friend from back home, Jim, an aspiring actor. When her grandmother is put into a medically induced coma after a car accident, Magnolia and Jim race back to South Carolina. Magnolia ends up staying for the summer to help her family--her mother, Lily, who struggles with alcoholism and broken dreams, and her sister, Violet, who's recently found out she's pregnant--and the family's restaurant, the Magic Lantern, a neighborhood institution that was founded by her great-grandmother Daisy. Things are much more dire than she'd realized, and her mother's boyfriend, Buster, has all but run the restaurant into the ground. The story follows the complicated relationship of Magnolia and Violet as they work through their respective relationship troubles--Magnolia with Ronny back in New York and Sam Smart in South Carolina, and Violet with her live-in boyfriend, Chris--and as the sisters move on to new things in their efforts to save the restaurant and support each other, their Gran, and their mother. Frank writes in a breezy style that often belies the anger and discontent below the surface of her story, and though her characters are fully formed, she gives them glossy surfaces that tend toward expected gender norms: The women are slim, beautiful, and well dressed, the men are tanned, toned, and quick to offer help. A story that focuses on the competition, love, and anger of sisterhood and the responsibilities of family.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 1, 2023
In her first novel, Frank takes readers to the South Carolina Low Country with a tale of three strong women that's equal parts hot and sweet. Southern-born Maggie (Magnolia) works endless hours for a difficult chef in New York in the hope of being promoted to sous chef. However, when Maggie gets a call from home that her grandmother is in a coma following an accident caused by Maggie's mother, Lily, those hopes grind to a halt. When Maggie returns home to Sullivan's Island, readers are introduced to an idyllic landscape and a cast of complex characters. While Gran fights to wake up, Maggie's sister, Violet, finds out she's pregnant and deals with a horrible breakup. Meanwhile, Lily slips into bad habits and seems to be taking the family restaurant down with her. Violet and Maggie face the crisis together and help their mother get on a healthy path. They also manage to restore the restaurant to its former glory. Fans of Brenda Novak should take note of a new author to add to their lists.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 3, 2023
Frank’s evocative debut depicts a young woman’s return home from New York City to an island in South Carolina. Aspiring chef Magnolia “Maggie” Adams left remote Sullivan’s Island, S.C., for a glamorous big-city life. After her beloved grandmother Rose is put in a coma following a car accident in which her intoxicated mother, Lily, was at the wheel, Maggie comes back to visit Rose in the hospital. She has a crash of her own on the way, rear-ending a car driven by pediatrician and farmer Sam Smart. Moments later, Maggie sees Sam at the hospital, where they collide again and she spills her coffee on his white coat. Soon, Maggie and Sam discover a powerful attraction, though Maggie is distracted by dealing with Lily during her visits to Rose. Maggie’s narration is prone to overstatement, particularly in her descriptions of the dreams she’s had about Sullivan’s Island (“Far away from my beloved land by day, at night I am there”). It’s unnecessary, because once Frank gets the reader there, the island comes to life with well-honed details. When Maggie passes familiar houses, she reflects, “It was nice to see them just as they’d always been. Like the people who lived inside them, the houses were old friends.”. Readers will savor this skillfully told tale of unexpected love and family drama. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME.

June 1, 2023

DEBUT Frank, daughter of the late best-selling novelist Dorothea Benton Frank, pays homage to her mother by offering a sweet, engaging, and predictable story with relatable characters on an island in the South Carolina Lowcountry, where many of her mother's novels were also set. Magnolia "Maggie" Adams is living her childhood dream, working in the kitchen of a trendy restaurant in Manhattan, when an emergency call from her younger sister Violet sends Maggie and her best friend Jim on the next flight out to South Carolina. A serious car accident has left Maggie's unreliable and egocentric mother Lilly with slight injuries and her steadfast and sensible grandmother Rose in a coma. Back home on Sullivan's Island, Maggie finds that much has changed, especially with their family restaurant, the Magic Lantern. Family tensions rise, and Violet tries to be the peacemaker between Maggie and their mother as they wait for Rose to improve. Meanwhile, Maggie wrestles with the direction of her career and her ties with family and friends. VERDICT Plot discrepancies and uneven pacing detract from full enjoyment the narrative, but fans of Dorothea Benton Frank will appreciate revisiting Sullivan's Island.--Joy Gunn

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