Bittersweet Creek

November 23, 2015
Kilpatrick (The Happy Hour Choir) transplants Shakespeare into West Tennessee with mixed success in this stand-alone contemporary. English teacher Rosemary "Romy" Satterfield returns to her family's farm and runs into Julian McElroy, her husband. Specifically, she runs into him with her fiancé's car. Killing Julian would have made Romy's McElroy-hating ancestors proud, but she feels a little bad about the encounter, since she once loved him. On the night they were supposed to elope, Julian said his vows and then broke her heart. Now it's 10 years later and she's over it; she just needs him to sign divorce papers so she can be free to marry Nashville millionaire Richard Paris, who doesn't knowâyetâthat Romy is married. The inauspicious collision between Julian and Romy leads to further encounters, and soon Romy is wondering whether she and Julian can work things out after all, and end the 150-year feud between the Satterfields and the McElroys. With numerous Shakespeare quotations and references that can be too cute by half (Romy and Julian, get it?), Kilpatrick wends her down-home sweet-tea way through some weighty themes, including spousal abuse. Fans of Southern contemporary romance will be charmed.

October 15, 2015

Despite the feud between their families that has been raging for over a century, Romy Satterfield and Julian McElroy fell in love during high school and secretly got married. They made plans to run away together after graduation, but Julian never showed. Eventually, Romy left for college heartbroken. Now an adult and living in Nashville, with a good job and a wealthy society boyfriend, Romy wants to put her past behind her. But when her father breaks his leg, she returns to the farm to help him. Coming home means running into Julian again. Romy would like to have nothing more to do with the man who abandoned her without cause or reason, but she needs something from him: a divorce. Then again, does she want to be free of Julian after all? VERDICT The author adds depth to the love story by incorporating issues of domestic violence and racism. Her second novel (after The Happy Hour Choir) is a pleasantly engaging, if unoriginal, take on Romeo and Juliet and the Hatfield-McCoy feud.--Lynnanne Pearson, Skokie P.L., IL

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