The Edge of Summer

by Viola Shipman

Overview

Bestselling author Viola Shipman delights with this captivating summertime escape set along the sparkling shores of Lake Michigan, where a woman searches for clues to her secretive mother's past

Devastated by the sudden death of her mother—a quiet, loving and intensely private Southern seamstress called Miss Mabel, who overflowed with pearls of Ozarks wisdom but never spoke of her own family—Sutton Douglas makes the impulsive decision to pack up and head north to the Michigan resort town where she believes she’ll find answers to the lifelong questions she’s had about not only her mother’s past but also her own place in the world.

Recalling Miss Mabel’s sewing notions that were her childhood toys, Sutton buys a collection of buttons at an estate sale from Bonnie Lyons, the imposing matriarch of the lakeside community. Propelled by a handful of trinkets left behind by her mother and glimpses into the history of the magical lakeshore town, Sutton becomes tantalized by the possibility that Bonnie is the grandmother she never knew. But is she? As Sutton cautiously befriends Bonnie and is taken into her confidence, she begins to uncover the secrets about her family that Miss Mabel so carefully hid, and about the role that Sutton herself unwittingly played in it all.

“The minute I finished The Clover Girls, I ordered copies for all my friends. It’s that good.” —Kristy Woodson Harvey, New York Times bestselling author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781525811425
Publisher:	Graydon House Books
Publication date:	07/12/2022
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	40,202
Product dimensions:	7.80(w) x 5.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Wade Rouse is a popular award-winning memoirist and internationally bestselling author of twelve books, which have been translated into twenty languages and selected as Today show Must-Reads, Indie Next Picks and Michigan Notable Books. Rouse writes fiction under his grandma’s name, Viola Shipman, to honor the woman whose heirlooms inspire his writing. He lives in Michigan and California, and hosts Wine & Words with Wade, A Literary Happy Hour, every Thursday.

Editorial Reviews

02/01/2022

Sutton Douglas's seamstress mother was deeply loving and insistently secretive about her past, and after her death, Sutton packs up and heads for the Michigan resort town from whence her mother came to find out more about her. At an estate sale held by the recently widowed town matriarch, Bonnie Lyons, Sutton buys buttons resembling the sewing notions her mother used and draws close to Bonnie, tantalized by the possibility of connection. From the ever-popular Shipman, pseudonym for award-winning memoirist Wade Rouse.

Library Journal