Where the rivers merge A novel

Best-selling Monroe's enthralling family saga follows dual time lines as Eliza, CEO of a successful family-owned company, tells her life story. Historical details, customs of the times, love, loss, economics, and passionate love for the land are all deftly interwoven. In 1988, on her eighty-eighth birthday, Eliza's son attempts to usurp her at the annual stockholders meeting by calling for a mandatory retirement. He wants to prevent Eliza from putting her beloved Mayfield, the South Carolina estate where she was born, into a conservation easement. Norah, unknown to the family, introduces herself as Eliza's grandniece and, as a shareholder, speaks up for the easement as a way to share their legacy with many "rather than it being the private property of the privileged few." When Eliza invites Norah to Mayfield, she shares the tale of how, in 1908, she met Norah's grandmother, Covey, a Black girl her same age who saved her when she was lost. Despite rigid segregation, they became best friends. With Eliza's brothers and friends, they experienced the natural wonders of the Lowcountry. Monroe's novel has echoes of such classics as A Woman of Substance, by Barbara Taylor Bradford, The Shell Seekers, by Rosamunde Pilcher, and The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough.

Monroe serves up a pleasing paean to rural life in South Carolina in the first of two planned novels about the history of a white family's plantation. In 1988, Eliza Rivers Chalmers DeLancey, 88, intends to put the remaining thousand acres surrounding Mayfield, her ancestral home, into a conservation easement to protect its legacy. Her son, however, wants to develop the property. To help ensure Mayfield's future, Eliza shares the property's history with her 18-year-old granddaughter, Savannah, and her grand-niece, Norah, who is also her childhood friend Covey's granddaughter, hoping the younger generation will carry out her wishes. Eliza begins the story in 1908 when she loved hanging around the stables where her father started breeding Marsh Tackys, a hardy horse native to South Carolina. Her tomboy nature upset her mother, as did her friendship with Covey, a Black girl who lived with her father on the property. In telling her story, Eliza endears herself to the two younger women and to the reader by sharing her indomitable spirit along with tidbits about native insects, animals, and landmarks. The author's fans will find much to admire. (May)

Land conservation and environmental preservation are the focus of this family saga based in southeastern South Carolina. The novel, part one of a two-part series, tells the story of Eliza, from her birth prior to World War I, to her rise as a corporate CEO in the 1980s. Eliza is scheduled to meet with stockholders to celebrate her 88th birthday. Simultaneously, Eliza's money-hungry son, Arthur, begins his quest to remove his mother from control of the multimillion-dollar corporation. Eliza announces her retirement, skips the birthday festivities, and escapes to Mayfield, her family's estate, bringing along not only her college-age granddaughter, but also the granddaughter of her closest childhood friend. Eliza tells the young women family stories sparked by the mural painted on the estate's dining room wall, including tales of racial injustice, women's roles, and second-best love. VERDICT Monroe ("Beach House" series; The Summer Guests), a skillful writer, ends the novel in medias res and leaves readers anticipating part two of the saga. It is a thoughtful work that her fans and those who prize stories about preserving nature and heritage will enjoy.--Joyce Sparrow