At twelve, Emily Parmenter knows alone all too well. Left
mostly to herself after her beautiful young mother
disappeared and her beloved older brother died, Emily is
keenly aware of yearning and loss. Rather than be consumed
by sadness, she has built a life around the faded
plantation where her remote father and hunting-obsessed
brothers raise the legendary Lowcountry Boykin hunting
spaniels. It is a meager, narrow, masculine world, but to
Emily it has magic: the storied deep-sea dolphins who come
regularly to play in Sweetwater Creek; her extraordinary
bond with the beautiful dogs she trains; her almost mystic
communion with her own spaniel, Elvis; the dreaming old
Lowcountry itself. Emily hides from the dreaded world
here.
It is enough.
And then comes Lulu Foxworth, troubled daughter of a truly
grand plantation, who has run away from her hectic
Charleston debutante season to spend a healing summer with
the quiet marshes and river, and the life-giving dogs.
Where Emily's father sees their guest as an entrée to a
society he thought forever out of reach, Emily is at once
threatened and mystified. Lulu has a powerful enchantment
of her own, and this, along with the dark, crippling
secret
she brings with her, will inevitably blow Emily's magical
water world apart and let the real one in -- but at a
terrible price.
Poignant and emotionally compelling, Anne Rivers Siddons's
Sweetwater Creek draws you into the luminous landscape of
the Lowcountry. With characters that linger long after
you've turned the last page, this engaging tale is
destined
to become an instant classic.