Lynne Bryant
Fiction
My favorite thing about reading is when you pick up a book by a new author, decide the plot sounds good, and then when you start reading, you’re sucked into this fictional (sometimes) world and all you want to do is keep turning pages until you get to the end. That’s what happened with this book.
Alligator Lake is the story of Avery, her mother Marion, and her mother, Willadean (can I just say how much I love that name? Totally going to use it in a future novel). Ten years ago, pregnant Avery fled her Mississippi hometown and vowed never to go back. But now her brother is getting married and he wants her and her daughter in the wedding. Avery decides it’s time to reconnect with her family, and her child’s father. Everyone has secrets, though, and soon her mother and her grandmother are forced to face past mistakes, along with Avery.
I could not put this book down. Every time I started to, a chapter would end in a way that made me want to read more. That is the sign of a good book. Ms. Bryant is an excellent writer, too: her dialogue is crisp, her descriptions captivating, and all her characters, even the bad ones, are three-dimensional. My only teeny tiny complaint is all the flashbacks. And yes, I know in a story like this one, flashbacks are essential. Crucial, even. They usually pull me right out of the book, but to give Ms. Bryant credit, they were definitely needed here, so I’ll give her a pass this time. There were quite a few plot twists I never saw coming, either, and I appreciated her not going the cliched route.
This is a great novel and I highly recommend it to everyone.
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