Charleston Kisses — Terry Ward Tucker

Terry Ward Tucker does it again. The main characters who pucker up for Charleston Kisses, the novel, deliver a one-two punch disguised as a French kiss. Her plot confirms a Southern suspicion: that "family" and "dysfunction" in the same phrase is redundant. Logan Gaillard, the female main character, knows perfectly well Thomas Wolfe was right, but she goes home again anyway. Charleston, "Lady by the Sea," is always the fall-back for this Southern gal whose string of failed relationships has elapsed too much time on her bio clock. Enter Tradd Petigru, the drunken young Charleston preacher who permanently trips Logan's romantic trigger. As soon as we begin to loathe him for his sins of weakness, Tucker pulls back a tendril of Spanish moss to show us poor Petigru's reason for communing with the bottle--a fiance who's been comatose four, long years. For her other characters, Tucker weaves Southern traits into patterns as complicated as the lattices in Lowcountry sweetgrass baskets. In some scenes, the players beg you to shake them by their shoulders; in others, to say, "Aw, sugah"--saving, "Bless their little hearts" for more innocent moments, excluding bending the truth. Charleston Kisses is a full-on-the-lips-buss, just the great read you'll want in your beach bag or on your bedside table.