The Edge of Summer Viola Shipman

Preorder your copy of Viola Shipman's The Edge of Summer available 7.12. Signed bookplates are available while supplies last. If you would like a signed bookplate please indicate in the order comments.

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About the book --

Reminiscent of the complex family stories by Nancy Thayer, Sunny Hostin and Mary Alice Monroe, Viola Shipman's poignant new novel explores the relationship between a curious girl and her secretive mother, taking readers from their hardscrabble life the Ozarks to her search for answers along the sparkling shores of lake Michigan.

Traumatized by the sudden death of her mother--a quiet, loving, overprotective seamstress called Miss Mabel who sacrificed everything for her daughter’s education but rarely spoke of her own family—Sutton Douglas makes the impulsive decision to pack up and start over in the Michigan resort town where she believes she’ll find answers to the lifelong questions she’s had about her mother’s past.

Recalling her mother’s sewing notions that were her childhood toys, Sutton buys a box of buttons at an estate sale from Bonnie Lyons, the town’s matriarch and a recent widow, who she becomes convinced—via the buttons she discovers and clues from her mother’s past—is the grandmother she never knew. As Sutton becomes a friend and confidante to Bonnie after her husband’s death, she begins to uncover the secrets about her family that Miss Mabel so carefully hid, and about the role she unwittingly played in it all: her grandparents, wealthy factory owners, ashamed and furious about their daughter’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sent Miss Mabel away to deliver the baby and give it up for adoption; instead, her mother escaped to a tiny Ozarks town where she raised her daughter in secrecy.

About the author --

Viola Shipman is the pen name for Wade Rouse, a popular, award-winning memoirist. Rouse chose his grandmother's name, Viola Shipman, to honor the woman whose heirlooms and family stories inspire his writing. Rouse is the author of The Clover Girls and The Summer Cottage, as well as The Charm Bracelet, which has been translated into more than a dozen languages and became an international bestseller. He divides his time between Saugatuck, Michigan and Palm Springs, California, and has written for People, Coastal Living, Good Housekeeping, and Taste of Home, along with other publications, and is a contributor to All Things Considered.