Colony Review

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(More customer reviews)That is the way a friend described this book to me and I have to admit it is certainly a diamond among the stones. This is an author who takes you to the place that lies deep between the pages or soul of her book. The main character is reflective and strong with undiminished courage. Maude is one of the most memorable characters I have ever come across.
The book begins as she arrives at Retreat, also know as The Colony, her in-law's summer home in Maine. A staunch and uppity "Blue Blood", the matriarch Mother Hannah, is not quick to take to a southern belle of the French persuasion. Maude with her husband Peter by her side, is going to show these Bostonians her strength for decades to come.
The book covers nearly 70 years of her life along with the family and friends that grow close to her heart as well as yours. There are times where the author's language is shear poetry. I place this book on my best books of all times list. It's not one to be missed. Kelsana 10/29/01

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An unforgettable story of love, acceptance, and tradition. When Maude Chambliss first arrives at Retreat, the seasonal home of her husband's aristocratic family, she is a nineteen-year-old bride fresh from South Carolina's Low Country. Among the patrician men and women who reside in the summer colony on the coast of Maine, her gypsy-like beauty and impulsive behavior immediately brand her an outsider. She, as well as everyone else, is certain she will never fit in. And of course, she doesn't...at first. But over the many summers she spends there, Maude comes to cherish life in the colony, as she does the people who share it with her. There is her husband Peter, consumed with a darkness of spirit; her adored but dangerously fragile children; her domineering mother-in-law, who teaches her that it is the women who posses the strength to keep the colony intact; and Maine native Micah Willis, who is ultimately Maude's truest friend. This brilliant novel, rich with emotion, is filled with appealing, intense, and indomitable characters. Anne Rivers Siddons paints a portrait of a woman determined to preserve the spirit of past generations--and the future of aplaice where she became who she is...a place called Colony. "An outstanding multigenerational novel...We are hooked from the moment we meet Maude." The New York Times

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Mother of Pearl Review

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(More customer reviews)This book was a challenge to read. Haynes distinctive way of developing her characters and her long and expressive prose made me want to stop reading and move on to something that was more leisure in style. But I kept on reading. I found the book complex and thought provoking. Not only did I care about the characters but I wanted to know them and understand them in depth - to examine how many of their sides were firing (feelings, sensing, knowing, seeing, hearing and smelling - six sided women). I kept thinking of the dream of the pig and how it revealed itself to Canaan. Ripped down the middle with no insides - like Canaan racially split, a product of the time, and operating at a head level (one sideded). Most of his sides frozen and it was only when he met Grace did he begin to integrate - to make the longest trip in the world - the 18" from his head to his heart.
I finally understood as I kept reading and rereading trying desperately to follow the story and clearly understand each page that the real message for me was not to figure out what Haynes was trying to convey but to understand what the personal message was for me. Reading fiction should be a personal experience - my personal experience. There is not just one message here. Just as in my own personal life so many people, events, and things don't make sense. I often struggle to analyze and reanzlye . I become frustrated, angry and end up giving away my finite life energy to something outside of myself - something that I have no control over. There is a line from the Desiderta which says "no matter whether or not it is clear to you the Universe is unfolding as it should."So in conclusion the book's message to me was: *detach, step back and allow the flow to happen; *observe; *identify which sides are firing or misfiring as the case may be; *identify when I have been in a similar situation (s),how do I misfire? * how do I want to do it differently? * Learn, grown and move on.

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The Red Hat Club Review

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(More customer reviews)I've lived in the Atlanta area for sixteen years and I thought I might be bored by the familiar in Red Hat Club. References to locations and landmarks, like Piedmont Ave, The Varsity and AJC. I questioned the use of the Jenny Jones Red Hat reference as been there done that. I sort of even resisted, trying to be aloof and objective, certainly not wanting to be swayed by all the things I had in common with the protag, Georgia; same age, similar life questions and experiences. I wanted to be cool and sophisticated and not invest anything in the other characters, Teeny, Linda, Diane and SuSu either because I prefer to believe that modern Southern women are not stereotypical airheads.
My ploy didn't work. I was putty in Haywood's hands by the end of chapter two. From then on, I just relaxed and enjoyed it and before it was over I found I was not only invested in the women of the Red Hat Club, I felt as though I could have fit right into their tight circle and would if they'd invite me.
I read for many reasons, pleasure, stimulation, information. But sometimes it's good to curl up on a rainy (North Georgia) Sunday and read an easy, lighthearted tale that tugs at your own memories of misspent youth and lost dreams. Sometimes that's all I need. But if I can turn the last page feeling I know the characters and wishing to read more about them, the author has done her job and what more can you ask of a work of fiction?
I was and she did.

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