The Ladies of Garrison Gardens

May 30, 2005
Shaffer gathers all the elements of engaging suspense: violent death, switched identities, blackmail and contrasting worlds of magnolia gentility and vaudeville seediness. And fans of the Three Miss Margarets
will be delighted that Shaffer has returned us to the scene of the crime—Charles Valley, Ga.—and this time gives us more of her delightful, scrappy, self-doubting heroine, Laurel Selene McCready. Shaffer's strength is her feeling for Southern white women with intellect and conscience and her disinclination to be simple when the truth is complicated. But her very depth is a liability in this saga of events following the (nonviolent) death of one of the Margarets, Peggy Garrison. The pace is slowed by an overload of backstory, awkwardly spliced, and by the time the action really heats up, there are no surprises. Still, there's emotional satisfaction to be found in the becoming of Laurel, who has inherited the magnificent Garrison Gardens from Peggy and is now officially, reluctantly, a lady, even if she swears, drinks beer and drives fast. Agent, Eric Simonoff.

May 15, 2005
In Shaffer's sequel to "The Three Miss Margarets", the Margarets (dowagers Li'l Bit, Dr. Maggie, and Miss Peggy) are now just two. Peggy Garrison has died and left her ample estate, including the Garrison Gardens, a key economic attraction in Charles Valley, GA, to feisty wild child Laurel Selene McCready. Overwhelmed by the responsibility of her sudden wealth, Laurel Selene struggles against pressure from the Garrison lawyer to sign over power of attorney. Meanwhile, Mrs. Rain, an elderly woman in another part of Georgia, follows Laurel Selene's trials via the local paper and harbors secrets about the three Miss Margarets and the sainted Myrtis Garrison, Peggy's husband's first wife, that just might be able to help Laurel Selene break the bonds of her past. Fascinating secrets are revealed through Mrs. Rain's recollections of her long-ago youth, but the chapters focusing on Laurel Selene are much less compelling. Purchase only for collections with a strong following for the first novel. -Rebecca Sturm Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2005
Sadly, in this sequel to " The Three Miss Margarets" (2003), only two Margarets remain: Miss Peggy Garrison, the youngest of the three dowagers, has succumbed to pancreatic cancer. She surprised everyone (her beneficiary included) by leaving her large estate--including Garrison Garden--to Laurel Selene McReady, who attended her faithfully in her last months and came to be the daughter she never had. Pressured to give her power of attorney to Garrison lawyer Stuart Lawrence, as had Miss Peggy, Laurel wavers; she doesn't know business, but she does know what rising health insurance costs mean to rank-and-file employees. Meanwhile, an old woman elsewhere in Georgia is inordinately interested in what's happening in Charles Valley. There's romance, too, as Dr. Perry Douglass, younger brother of Laurel's good buddy Denny, is home from Harvard to practice medicine and to woo Laurel, even though she's eight years his senior and still calls him "Wiener." And there are shocking secrets revealed in a subplot about the performing Sunshine Sisters. So pour a glass of sweet tea and settle in for some top-notch entertainment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)