The High Tide Club

In October 1941, four young women buried a man on Talisa Island off the coast of Georgia. Almost 80 years later, millionaire Josephine Bettendorf Warrick, at 99, is fighting the state to hold onto the island. She wants to bequeath her home to her estranged friends or their descendants, so she hires attorney Brooke Trappnell to find them. The story of that October week is told in alternating chapters with the account of Brooke's search for the descendants. Josephine dies before she can reveal all her secrets, but Brooke juggles the investigation into Josephine's story with her own struggles as a single mother. The contemporary group of women never come together in this novel. There are too many essential female characters, and some, including Josephine, come across as unlikable. The story moves very slowly, with little action until halfway through the book. While Andrews (The Weekenders) successfully links the two plotlines, Brooke's story of her relationship with her son's father has little development and an abrupt conclusion.