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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781416549703
Edition: First Edition
ISBN: 1416549706
Label: Pocket
Manufacturer: Pocket
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 384
Publication Date: July 14, 2009
Publisher: Pocket
Studio: Pocket
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
From beloved New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe comes a new novel of the sultry South Carolina lowcountry, and the proud traditions and earthy resilience of the people who live there. Publishers Weekly embraced Time Is a River, Monroe's "novel of strong Southern women," saying "the author's love for her characters is palpable throughout." Now she returns with Last Light over Carolina, the deeply moving story of another strong woman, Carolina Morrison, struggling to prove that love is a light that never dies.
Every woman in the lowcountry knows the unspoken fear that clutches the heart every time her man sets out to sea. Now, that fear has become a terrible reality for Carolina Morrison. Her husband, shrimp boat captain Bud Morrison, the only man she's ever loved, is lost and alone somewhere in the vast Atlantic fi shing grounds, with a storm gathering and last light falling.
As the action unfolds on this one terrifying, illuminating day, Carolina and Bud Morrison look back across thirty years of love and loss, joy and sorrow. Carolina walked away from a well-to-do upbringing to marry Captain Bud Morrison. She embraced his extraordinary lifestyle by the sea and the customs of a historic shrimping village. Yet lately, hard times and the loneliness of long separations have driven them apart -- and driven her to make a mistake that threatens to shatter their once-unbreakable bond forever.
When Bud Morrison is overdue at the docks, the close-knit community rallies together to search for one of its own. But Carolina knows that it is their love that must somehow call him home, across miles of rough water and unspeakable memories. And she swears that if she is given one more chance -- for love and for forgiveness -- nothing will ever take her from this man's side again.
In Last Light over Carolina, Mary Alice Monroe once again explores a vanishing feature of the southern coastline, the mysterious yet time-honored shrimping culture, in a convincing and compelling tale of an enduring marriage.
Average Rating: 
Rating: -
I have read some of the bad reviews of this book and I just don't get it. This novel is about real people with normal jobs and lives. This is the story mostly about shrimp and the being a shrimp captain. This is something I never knew anything about or had any interest in, but now when I eat shrimp it will make me think. It is also a man's love for the sea and his family. The heroine of the story is named Carolina and the love she has for her husband is real as and shows the problems many couples go through. It is not a fairytale that most of the romantic writers put into their books. These are average people with money problems, just like most Americans. They do not have the fairytale ending of becoming millionaires. After reading years of Danielle Steel and many others this is such a nice surprise.
You read through the pages feel the bad economy and how it has affected the town that they live in and the realties of working hard and making ends meet. The best part of the book for me were the two main characters working to save their marriage and finding out what really matters to each of them. This is a refreshing novel that makes you smile and glad that you took the time to read it.
Rating:  -
This is a learning experience with the interesting backdrop of a shrimper way of life from all angles. I could smell the shrimp! This would not be my choice of a way to make a living but I enjoyed the storyline around it. This is a satisfying insight into relationships and all facets of love. A lot of problems are dealt with with great wisdom. Mary Alice Monroe certainly did her homework for this one! This was my first Monroe book but it won't be my last! I recommend highly!!!
Another terrific book I enjoyed lately and one that I think would make a beautiful movie is EXPLOSION IN PARIS, by Pirrung....The wonderful reviews hooked ME!! ... EXPLOSION IN PARIS ....Also, THE LOST HOURS and WHISTLING IN THE DARK are two more that inspired me.
Rating:  -
As a 45 year old man, I am probably not the ideal target audience for Mary Alice Monroe's romantic drama LAST MOON OVER CAROLINA. I was drawn to the book because I often read works that are set in the low country of South Carolina...my parents live in gorgeous Beaufort, SC, and I visit there every year.
LAST MOON...reads something like a Lifetime movie. We meet Bud & Carolina more or less in current times. This aging couple has been through a lot of ups and downs in their lives, and their marriage is teetering a bit. Shrimp-boat captain Bud decides to take his boat out alone on this particular day, because his crew member is running late...and he has a terrible accident that puts his life in danger. But most of the book is a chance to glance back at critical moments during the relationship of these two...from their first, chemistry-packed meeting, through early courtship, their first years happily working together on Bud's vessel (named Carolina) and how time and distance and economic / weather hardships slowly whittle away at their once tight relationship.
Not too much happens in "our" time, with most of the book exposing past events. Bud is a handsome, humble man who comes from a long line of under-educated shrimpboaters. He is an avid reader and capable of great passions, but he is quick to anger and slow to articulate his feelings. Carolina comes from a well-to-do family (and in a cliche that's simply too familiar), she marries Bud over the objections of her parents, especially disapproving dad. The book takes these two characters, and those closest to them, through many predictable turns. Several key events take place, of course, the kinds of things that when they happen to real people seem earth-shattering...but for a person reading a work of fiction, they seem somewhat mundane.
At its core, though, the book wants to explore the fragile nature of relationships but also the deep strength of passion, love and determination that can draw seemingly broken couples back together. I very much like the overall spirit of the book...it is both realistic and optimistic about relationships. It sees how they can go wrong AND how they can go right.
The book reads quickly. It was never boring, exactly, and I was fairly interested to see how it all played out...even though I suspected pretty much how it would all end up, and I was right.
My problem, though, was with the writing approach. Monroe is one of those writers who feels the need to tell us everything a person is thinking. It's not enough to have us understand their feelings through their actions...we have to have everything explained to us. I think she is a good enough writer that she could have avoided that trap (and probably shaved 10-15% off the size of the book). She writes, for example, a brisk scene of dialogue between Bud and his father-in-law to-be...and then she has to summarize Bud's feelings about it all at great length, when frankly, Bud's actions and his spoken words really told us all we needed to know.
It's a romantic book, and really, it is a love story (with a major subplot involving another love story between Bud & Carolina's daughter Lizzy and the man in HER life). It doesn't truly immerse us in the world of the low country and while it gives nice details about the day-to-day realities of shrimping...it isn't really too interested in the business or technicalities of that world...mostly its romantic draw to both Bud & Carolina.
I don't regret reading the book, but I'd be very careful who I'd recommend it to, as well. With some better editing of Monroe's weaker writing spots and this could have been a truly moving book.
Rating: -
What I love about Monroe's books is that clear and sparkling passion for whatever the topic of choice may be. And passion is certainly what she has going on here: a heart-tingling tribute to the shrimping business and culture. It's poetic and sweet, I can't deny it, but there isn't much plot to go along with it.
The story focuses on Bud and Carolina, a married couple working the shrimp business. One day Bud goes out on his boat and meets with a horrible accident. The rest of the story consists mainly of flashbacks and the tale of the ups and downs of their marriage.
The flashbacks is honestly a neat effect and a fine way to tell the story once one adjusts to the constantly switching dates. I thoroughly enjoyed the celebration of marriage as well as that of the conservation of both community and environment. But the novel fell into that old chick-lit mistake of too much emotion and not enough plot to carry it through.
"Last Light Over Carolina" is enjoyable and likeable, and I found myself caught up in the lives and emotions of the characters. But plotwise? Not much there.
Rating: -
Mary Alice Monroe's story of Carolina Morrison and her husband Bud. They have chosen the life of commercial fishing in South Carolina to raise their family. This book tells of their marriage from the beginning, and as they grow, to present day. No marriage is without conflicts and difficulties, as Monroe shows us the Morrison's trials and tribulations. From the difficulties of making a living as a shrimp boat captain, to the differences in emotional needs of men and women. I found this book kept me interested up to the very end. This is where Monroe builds up the story to a life threatening situation that will keep you turning the pages to see what happens. She shows us that women are tough, men can be stubborn and prideful, but that in the end, if both people work at their marriage, there can be a happy ending.
Her description of South Carolina's low country is a character all it's own in this great story.
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