From bestselling author Anne Rivers Siddons
comes a bittersweet and finely wrought story of
friendship, family, and Charleston society. At
twelve, Emily Parmenter knows alone all too well. Left
mostly to herself after her beautiful young mother
disappeared and her beloved older brother died, Emily is
keenly aware of yearning and loss. Rather than be
consumed by sadness, she has built a life around the
faded plantation where her remote father and
hunting-obsessed brothers raise the legendary Lowcountry
Boykin hunting spaniels. It is a meager, narrow,
masculine world, but to Emily it has magic: the storied
deep-sea dolphins who come regularly to play in
Sweetwater Creek; her extraordinary bond with the
beautiful dogs she trains; her almost mystic communion
with her own spaniel, Elvis; the dreaming old Lowcountry
itself. Emily hides from the dreaded world here. It is
enough. And then comes Lulu Foxworth, troubled
daughter of a truly grand plantation, who has run away
from her hectic Charleston debutante season to spend a
healing summer with the quiet marshes and river, and the
life-giving dogs. Where Emily's father sees their guest
as an entrée to a society he thought forever out of
reach, Emily is at once threatened and mystified. Lulu
has a powerful enchantment of her own, and this, along
with the dark, crippling secret she brings with her,
will inevitably blow Emily's magical water world apart
and let the real one in—but at a terrible
price. Poignant and emotionally compelling, Anne
Rivers Siddons's Sweetwater Creek draws you
into the luminous landscape of the Lowcountry. With
characters that linger long after you've turned the last
page, this engaging tale is destined to become an
instant classic.
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