My Sunday Book Review is for Claire Fullerton’s Little Tea. Claire writes fine southern fiction with stellar prose that takes us right into the south alongside her. Three best friends reunite twenty some years later to catch up on their lives through reminiscing the past.
Blurb:
Southern Culture … Old Friendships … Family Tragedy
One phone call from Renny to come home and “see about” the capricious Ava and Celia Wakefield decides to overlook her distressful past in the name of friendship.
For three reflective days at Renny’s lake house in Heber Springs, Arkansas, the three childhood friends reunite and examine life, love, marriage, and the ties that bind, even though Celia’s personal story has yet to be healed. When the past arrives at the lake house door in the form of her old boyfriend, Celia must revisit the life she’d tried to outrun.
As her idyllic coming of age alongside her best friend, Little Tea, on her family’s ancestral grounds in bucolic Como, Mississippi unfolds, Celia realizes there is no better place to accept her own story than in this circle of friends who have remained beside her throughout the years. Theirs is a friendship that can talk any life sorrow into a comic tragedy, and now that the racial divide in the Deep South has evolved, Celia wonders if friendship can triumph over history.
My 5 Star Review:
A tale that encompasses several topics of life – family, friendship, racism, mental health, and tragedy. Southern fiction at its best. We’re introduced to the triangular friendship between Celia, Renny and Ava, friends from childhood, in a reunion visit up to Renny’s lakehouse where the girls recant stories, memories, and unresolved issues from their pasts, introducing the many characters who played parts in their lives.
Celia managed to leave the deep south and is happily married now living in California, but the girlfriend reunion brings up some painful memories that Celia Wakefield finds herself now having to put closure on, including her ex-fiance Tate whose deep south family wasn’t too accepting of Celia’s close friendship with ‘black people’, – mainly her oldest best friend Little Tea and her family. And once tragedy struck within the plantation, a silent slithering away of Tate occurred.
The story goes back and forth through time – current day at Renny’s lake house in Arkansas where the reunion takes place and back in the 1980s when they were younger girls where we’re taken into Celia’s younger life with her family living in Mississippi on their cotton plantation and the black hired help living on that land in a cottage, becoming closer than most with their white bosses in the still divided south. Thelonius and Elvita and their daughter Little Tea who becomes Celia’s best friend, and ultimately, the love interest of Celia’s brother Hayward – still in a dangerous time for mixed races to show themselves publicly, but accepted within the family – except for Celia’s eldest brother John who comes off racist.
In this story, the past comes back to haunt as it does in real life. Celia must find closure, Ava must choose her happiness between two men, and Renny is the host where everyone meets up at her place to mull over their pasts and solidfy their futures. Renny is the group organizer. And nobody knows the deep dark secrets better than the three girls.
Some wonderful prose to quote from this book. Here are just two:
Little Tea and Celia discussing Tea’s plans after graduating high school: “I know times have changed for people of color, but there’s a residue that’ll stick around forever.”
Celia talking to her brother Hayward about their grandmother’s racism, trying to figure why as someone who came from poverty and now riches, why she didn’t have compassion: “People attack what they fear.” “People always have to have something to look down on.”
©DGKaye2020
This sounds a wonderful family saga, Debby. Thanks for your superb review. Toni x
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Thanks Toni. Happy to enlighten. 🙂 xx
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what a wonderful review! I wish Claire the best with her latest book.
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Thanks so much Jim 🙂
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A wonderful review for a lovely book Debby.. congratulations Claire and will share anon in an update..hugs to you both ♥
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Thanks so much Sal for your lovely comment and for your generous sharing ❤
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Debby, it is beyond gratifying to read such an insightful summary of Little Tea. You captured the spirit of the book beautifully, and I thank you profusely!
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A most beautiful telling Claire, and a pleasure to read and review. I”ve reviewed on Goodreads and Amazon.ca so I hope that shows up for you. ❤
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Hi !
Thanks Debby, It sounds like my kind of read…and I love the cover! Stay safe, Love xx
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Hi Joy. So glad to introduce you to Claire’s beautiful book. Thank you my friend and you too, stay safe as Corona amps up around the world. ❤
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I really enjoyed your review of this book, Debby. Claire writes beautifully.
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Thank you Robbie. And I wholeheartedly agree, Claire is a beautiful writer ❤
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I also loved this too, Debby. Great review! I hope to catch up on other novels by the author in the near future.
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Thanks Olga. I’m happy that I have another book by Claire awaiting me in my Kindle. ❤
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What a great review, Debby. You do such a great job with these. I love beautiful prose and the tidbits were compelling. Congrats to Claire on the high praise!
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Thanks so much Diana. I’m glad to hear that my reviews paint an enticing picture. ❤
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I love books like this. It is on my TBR list!
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Well great Darlene. Always happy to share a good book. 🙂 x
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This sounds another one that’s right up my street. Thanks for the introduction, Debby! x
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My pleasure Stevie. No doubts you will enjoy. x
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The blurb alone is an invitation to reminisce, which is what happened when my memoir released last year. Women I hadn’t seen since high school appeared, and we got a chance to catch up on our lives. One of the women just sent me another text last week. However we can manage to connect, let’s do it, I say! I LOVE the cover.
Thanks for alerting me to this book, with both charms and challenges. It looks tempting, Debby! 🙂
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I love your story Marian. How wonderful to have a great community of friends to support you. Sadly, with the exception of very few, my physical circles don’t even read books, most, not even mine. I wish my writing friends didn’t live so far away. ❤
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Sounds like an interesting read. Thanks for sharing Debby. 🙂
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Thanks Marje 🙂 xx
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Hi Debby,
Thanks for sharing Claire’s book and it sounds really good, so I’m adding it to my TBR list. I’ll be ordering new books soon, and your review is great, as always! Congrats to Claire and I wish her all the best.
~Lauren 💖
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Hi Lauren. I’m delighted to hear my review piqued your curiosity. I do hope you enjoy Claire’s book as much as I did. She’s a beautiful writer. Hugs! ❤ xx
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This sounds like a good book to curl up with. Its subject of racism is so relevant and love, Debby, that your review this week gave voice to this important subject. ❤
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Thanks so much Carol. A current topic these days too it seems. And yes, a real good book to cozy up with. Claire is a beautiful writer. ❤
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Thanks so much for sharing my review of Little Tea. 🙂
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