A well written and entertaining book. Well developed plot and characters. I received an arc from the publisher and Netgalley and this is my unbiased review.

I thought the book was slow and hard to get into for me, but it’s not a bad book—it’s just the author’s style. It’s kind of like someone you know who’s telling you a story and rambles on about a lot of things in general. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s a lot like reading a play. There are four characters: CarolSue is the main character. Then there’s her sister Louise, Louise’s son Gary, and Louise’s boyfriend, Sheriff Gus. The story is told from all four points of view with CarolSue being in first person and the rest in third person. It’s a story about death and life, loss, and grief, and family. It’s also about religion and immigration. It’s a story about living and what we do when we’re faced with challenges. When CarolSue’s husband dies unexpectedly of a heart attack, her sister Louse swoops in and takes charge, moving CarolSue from her posh home in Atlanta to a farm in Indiana. CarolSue wants nothing to do with farming, but it’s all she has until Gary comes home with a baby—and CarolSue takes over her care. Even though the story is about CarolSue, it takes the entire book for Louise to come to terms with the death of her own husband Harold.

What I liked: It’s an interesting book full of poignant moments and the challenges of families. There are arguments and non-arguments, sarcasm, and moments of humor throughout. I loved the “special” tea the sisters rely on to get them through some things. “Wild Turkey” certainly makes tea special. I also liked the references to Louise and Gus “napping” throughout.

What I didn’t like: I had trouble getting into the multiple POVs at first – though I am thankful that the author delineated each POV with who it was at that particular time. I also thought the book a little slow – for me.

Recommendation: If you’re a fan of women’s fiction about families, I’d pick this one up as well as the first one (about Louise and Harold). You don’t have to have read the first one to know exactly what’s goin on in this one – I didn’t and had no trouble picking the story line up.

Thanks to the publisher for gifting this book to me. All opinions are my own and are not influenced by anyone.

I really enjoy reading books with older main characters and I love reading books about sisters so this was a win-win for me. Sisters Louisa and Carol Sue are in their 60s and even though they are alike in some ways, they are very different. Louisa has always been content to live and work on the family farm. She is pretty set in her ways and is happiest in messy old clothes working in her garden. CarolSue had married and moved to Atlanta more than 20 years earlier. She enjoys dressing well, playing bridge and having lunch with her friends.

As the story begins, CarolSue's husband has just died. The first person she calls is her sister and Louisa gets there the next day. Even though CarolSue isn't sure what to do with her life, Louisa convinces her to go home to Indiana and live on the family farm. It's a very different lifestyle for her and she reluctantly agrees. When she gets to Indiana, she realizes that Louisa's method of getting over grief is to keep busy - working in the garden, feeding the chickens and other farm duties. CarolSue has about decided to go home when her nephew, Gary, shows up with a baby that he claims belongs to one of his church members and he asks his mom and aunt to babysit until he finds the mother. Well - there is way more to that story than I am going to tell you in this review but the important thing is that they both love taking care of the baby and learn to love her.

There are a lot of funny moments in this novel. Louisa has named all of her chickens and talks to them while she lets them wander around in the house. She fixes her special tea once a day - tea mixed with whiskey and when her boyfriend, who is also sheriff, comes to visit they take naps together - which are way more than naps. Louisa also has a straight forward way of looking at the world which is humorous at times. In many ways she tries to be a tough old lady but she really has a heart of gold that she keeps hidden from everyone but her sister. She and her son never see eye-to-eye, she doesn't understand his life of being a preacher (and doesn't mind telling him) but she helps him out every chance she gets and was willing to take the baby for a day, that became a months and to keep the baby hidden from Gus (which caused an end to their 'naps' for awhile).

This book deals with more than sisters learning to live together -- it's also about grief, fear of the future, family and love. It also touches on illegal immigrants and the way they are treated. Overall it's a wonderful story of two sisters coping with life and leaning to reach out and change their attitudes when needed. It's a fun book to read and I hope that there is a third book in the future. I'm not ready to say goodbye to these sisters.

Thanks to the author for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.

Lynne Hugo skillfully weaves a compelling and socially relevant story of sisters who come back together in their later years and are faced with a dilemma not of their own making. The sisters, strong in different ways, have been dramatically influenced by their own family tragedies; the profound loss each has experienced does not prevent many humorous and sarcastic exchanges from taking place. (Lynne Hugo is a master of such dialogue!) The author’s previous novel, The Testament of Harold’s Wife, presented the same characters, but the author does a fine job of tying that book and characters to The Book of Carol Sue without needing to read them sequentially. I had high expectations for this book and was pleased that The Book of Carol Sue more than lived up to them. An early-to-bed girl, I read late into the night to finish the story!

I truly enjoyed this story of sisters, CarolSue and Louisa, both now widows. How we deal with the large issues of life: the death of a husband or child, immigration, and faith combined with the small issues of life: what do you do with a Glitter Jesus painting your son expects to be proudly displayed, how do sisters get along when one is used to lunches with ladies and the other who finds working all day in the garden and cleaning out the chicken coup a good time intertwine throughout the book. I laughed and cried throughout the stories of these realistic yet quirky characters!

Our introduction to CarolSue is stark; her husband Charlie has just died in front of her eating blueberry pie. CarolSue goes into shock, or withdrawal, or whatever people do when their world ends and they are faced with life inextricably altering forever. Her sister Louisa sweeps in to help her do the myriad of things that need to be done when you don’t want to do anything but hide away from the world and grieve, helping with funeral arrangements and then organizing (perhaps railroading would be a better description) that CarolSue leave her life in Atlanta and move back to southeastern Indiana to a town called Shandon where Louisa lived on a farm and practised self-sufficiency and thought of her farm animals as more than pets. The sisters are as day to night, CarolSue being interested in fashion, grooming and playing bridge with ladies who lunch, Louisa is into canning fruits and veggies grown in her own garden for winter, finds clothes in the back of her cupboard from fifteen years ago and calls them new and names her animals after characters from her favourite authors. Louisa has had her share of grief, losing both her husband and her grandson within months of each other and she has a less than cordial relationship with her son Gary, who has become entangled with a cult and has gone so far as to become ‘ordained’ via the internet, setting up his own church. Louisa is also involved with police officer Gus, who comes on a regular basis to ‘nap’ with her. Indeed, there are a lot of euphemisms in this book, with special tea (tea with whiskey) being an especial favourite. One day Gary turns up with a newborn baby girl complete with a dubious story as her appearance, begging the women to look after the baby as he does ‘church work’ in trying to locate the illegal immigrant mother to return her child. But over the course of a few weeks, CarolSue, with her history of infertility bonds with Gracie, as does Louisa, despite her protestations of the opposite. Add to the mix their attempts to keep baby Grace a secret from Gus, who would have to be legally involved with an abandoned baby and let the fun begin.

This is a story that explores love, family, spirituality, loss and grief. It also explores the current immigration issues that face the United States, what draws immigrants to cross borders illegally and what lengths a parent will go to to create a better life for their own child. All these topics are done with a light hand, not really needing a deep philosophical look within the reader's own soul, but it does open ethical issues that should be further explored by people. There is a vein of humour throughout the book that relieves the tension, with sarcasm being the given talent of both sisters as they deal with frustration, fear and sadness. Distinct mention must be made of the fact that both these main characters are in the young-old stage of life, which isn’t the norm in today's written world, where youth is everything. They are written about as having vivid lives, not just swinging on the front porch, drinking iced tea, or knitting endlessly long scarves; these women have sex drives and use these urges on a regular basis!

This is a nice little book to while away the hours on a summers day. It's not too taxing mentally, but it is engaging and entertaining.

The loss of a loved one is a difficult time. We all grieve in our own way and in our own time.

This novel explores a bit of that as well as how life sometimes throws us an unexpected path to healing.

CarolSue has just lost her beloved husband. Her sister, Louisa, decides the 'plan' that needs to be put into action is packing up, leaving Atlanta behind, and moving into her Indiana farm. There she envisions CarolSue healing through hard work in the garden, miles away from constant reminders of her husband.

Only there are some things she doesn't anticipate. Things that she hadn't told her sister.

Add in her nephew and some of his poor decisions, and life gets interesting.

Overall, a good read.

I appreciated that the main characters are older and that while they allude to sex, there aren't any graphic scenes. Rather just mention of Louisa and Gus' nap schedule with sound effects.

CarolSue’s husband dies suddenly from a heart attack. Her sister Louisa comes down to Atlanta to help her pack up her stuff and move in with Louisa at her farm in Indiana to help her with her grief. CarolSue goes along but starts to dislike the farm life. Their are some twists and turns with Louisa’s son Gary that keeps Louisa at the farm. The book was good except sometimes it just went on too long. Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington for my copy. This is my own opinion.

The book starts off with quite a few pages setting up the story. The characters are well defined but not always likable. You definitely can sympathize with them though as they develop and try to find answers to all the effects to them. It’s a story that is sweet but seems to hit a few bumps along the way.

I thought this story started out slow only in that it seemed to take a lot of words to get to a point of understanding what was going on. It was like “listening” to someone who talks really fast and rambles on. But as I got farther into it I realized I enjoyed that “voice” of the book! The main characters personalities were laced with humor, concern and love. It was very easy to find myself caring for them as I read on - even though some of their choices seemed questionable at times. But, that just made them even more human.

I found myself thinking more than once as I was reading that this would make a great play. It just reminded me of some of the endearing plays I’ve seen in dinner theaters. Just a thought. I actually felt a little sad when I read the last page - like I wanted to hear more. Maybe that was the idea?

I received an ebook copy of this book for an honest review. It reads fine as a stand alone, however, there is an earlier book that involves the same characters. I plan to go back to read The Testament of Harold’s Wife.

This is such a good read and definitely one to take you away from the current (Coronavirus) doom and gloom.

It's a heartfelt story that fits wonderfully with the first book 'The Testament of Harold's Wife' and although it stands alone, I'd definitely recommend you read that first. There's humour, sadness, frustration and love in both books, as with all families and I just so enjoyed the storyline, humour and pathos throughout.

For anyone that's experienced grief this is such an uplifting book. CarolSue is the Sister of Louisa and following her husband's death, she moves back in with her sister and the resulting friction and love is so well told. Gary, Louisa's son is the most frustrating character and I must admit to skipping a few pages when it was all about him.
Alongside the family there are other characters and one in particular has a sad element and a politically pertinent situation. I don't want to say too much, but, it's a worthwhile read.

Thanks to Lynne Hugo, NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to preview and I wish this lovely book every success.