The Night the Lights Went Out by Karen White: Review, First Chapter

The Night the Lights Went Out by Karen White, April 11, 2017, Berkley
."..a young single mother discovers that the nature of friendship is never what it seems.."

A thoroughly enjoyable Southern novel about life in an Atlanta suburb and the culture surrounding families there, especially the women and their school children. Merilee Dunlap moves to the suburb of Sweet Apple, Ga. after her divorce, renting a cottage from a local woman legend, Sugar Prescott,  and hoping to go on with life and raise her two children.

Although the past comes back to interfere in her life, and an anonymous blog threatens to reveal everything about her life, Merilee eventually finds new love and stability though feeling like the odd woman out among the wealthy suburban moms.

I gave this a five for reader enjoyment and its revealing insights into a slice of Southern life, and plan to reread it again in the future!

First chapter:
The Playing Fields Blog
Observations of Suburban Life from Sweet Apple, Georgia, written by Your Neighbor

A woman at my hair salon today asked me where I'd learned to put on make up. I considered this a compliment, having always taken good care of my skin for the sole purpose of making it a smooth palette on which to put makeup. I could tell she was a transplant to our north Atlanta suburb of Sweet Apple by her accent. And by her question. Every true Southern mama teaches her daughter bout makeup. I think, in some parts of the Deep South (like the Mississippi Delta, girls are born with makeup brushes clutched in their tiny hands.This might be hearsay, but have you ever noticed how many Miss Americas are from Mississippi?

Based on my comments and the beginning of the book, would you read on?
MEME: Every Tuesday Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros sharing the first paragraph or two, from a book you are reading or  have read, or will be reading soon.

Karen White also wrote another excellent book, FLIGHT PATTERNS (see my review). "It tells the story of Georgia Chambers, a fine china expert who left her family years before and is forced to return home and repair the relationships she’s carefully avoided. To embrace her own life—mistakes and all—she will have to find the courage to confront the ghosts of her past and the secrets she was forced to keep."

First Chapter: Flight Patterns by Karen White

FLIGHT PATTERNS, a novel by Karen White, paperback published March 28, 2017.

See my review of the hardcover edition, May 2016.

First chapter:
Georgia April 2015
New Orleans

Memories are thieves. They slip behind you when you least expect it, their cold hands pressed against your face, suffocating. They blow icy-cold air even on the coldest days, and pinch you awake in the middle of the night. My grandfather had once told me that memories were like a faucet you could turn off or on at will, and that after I got to be as old as he was, I'd have figured out how it works. Maybe I just wasn't old enough, because my memories always had a way of getting stuck on the "on" position, flooding my mind with images and snatches of conversation I'd rather not relive. 

Book description:

Georgia Chambers' work as an expert on fine china—especially Limoges—requires her to return to her family home on the coast of Florida. She finds solace in seeing her grandfather still toiling away in the apiary where she spent much of her childhood, but encountering her estranged mother and sister leaves her rattled. 

MEMES: Every Tuesday Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros sharing the first paragraph or two, from a book you are reading or will be reading soon.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by The Purple Booker, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 

Book Review: Flight Patterns by Karen White

FLIGHT PATTERNS by Karen White, to be released May 24, 2016 by NAL

The New York Times bestselling author of The Sound of Glass and coauthor of The Forgotten Room tells the story of a woman coming home to the family she left behind—and to the woman she always wanted to be...

Georgia Chambers has spent her life sifting through other people’s pasts while trying to forget her own. But then her work as an expert of fine china—especially of Limoges—requires her to return to the one place she swore she’d never revisit...

It’s been ten years since Georgia left her family home on the coast of Florida, and nothing much has changed, except that there are fewer oysters and more tourists. She finds solace seeing her grandfather still toiling away in the apiary where she spent much of her childhood, but encountering her estranged mother and sister leaves her rattled. 

Seeing them after all this time makes Georgia realize that something has been missing—and unless she finds a way to heal these rifts, she will forever be living vicariously through other people’s remnants. To embrace her own life—mistakes and all—she will have to find the courage to confront the ghosts of her past and the secrets she was forced to keep...(publisher)

My comments: 
Georgia returns home to Florida to search for a soup bowl with an unusual Limoges pattern that she had found in her grandmother's closet many years ago. She hopes to match it up with china in the same pattern that a client has asked her to research and to find missing pieces to complete his set.

The history of this piece of Limoges china that Georgia had at home is tied to a family secret that had died with her grandmother years before. But when a surprise visitor arrives from France with a piece from the same set of porcelain, her grandfather reveals truths that affect Georgia and her sister profoundly and ties her history to that of her client, the man who now owns the full set.  

Suspenseful and heart wrenching, Flight Patterns is an expertly written story combining people and the past, the history of WWII in Europe, to the present.