Genre Fiction
![Pamela Terry - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B08DVFL44J.jpg)
The Sweet Taste of Muscadines: A Novel
A woman returns to her small southern hometown in the wake of her mother's sudden death-only to find the past upended by stunning family secrets-in this intimate debut novel, written with deep compassion and sharp wit.
"A deeply moving work of Southern fiction that will appeal to fans of Where the Crawdads Sing . . . a story to remember long after the last page is turned."-Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost and Found Bookshop
Lila Bruce Breedlove never quite felt at home in Wesleyan, Georgia, especially after her father's untimely demise when she was a child. Both Lila and her brother, Henry, fled north after high school, establishing fulfilling lives of their own. In contrast, their younger sister, Abigail, opted to remain behind to dote on their domineering, larger-than-life mother, Geneva. Yet despite their independence, Lila and Henry know deep down that they've never quite reckoned with their upbringing.
When their elderly mother dies suddenly and suspiciously in the muscadine arbor behind the family estate, Lila and Henry return to the town that essentially raised them. But as they uncover the facts about Geneva's death, shocking truths are revealed that overturn the family's history as they know it, sending the pair on an extraordinary journey to chase a truth that will dramatically alter the course of their lives. The Sweet Taste of Muscadines reminds us all that true love never dies.
"A deeply moving work of Southern fiction that will appeal to fans of Where the Crawdads Sing . . . a story to remember long after the last page is turned."-Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost and Found Bookshop
Lila Bruce Breedlove never quite felt at home in Wesleyan, Georgia, especially after her father's untimely demise when she was a child. Both Lila and her brother, Henry, fled north after high school, establishing fulfilling lives of their own. In contrast, their younger sister, Abigail, opted to remain behind to dote on their domineering, larger-than-life mother, Geneva. Yet despite their independence, Lila and Henry know deep down that they've never quite reckoned with their upbringing.
When their elderly mother dies suddenly and suspiciously in the muscadine arbor behind the family estate, Lila and Henry return to the town that essentially raised them. But as they uncover the facts about Geneva's death, shocking truths are revealed that overturn the family's history as they know it, sending the pair on an extraordinary journey to chase a truth that will dramatically alter the course of their lives. The Sweet Taste of Muscadines reminds us all that true love never dies.
Editorial Reviews
"I inhaled this book. Rarely has a story or an author impressed me more. Pamela Terry is destined to be a rising star in the literary world."-Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Walk Along the Beach
"A dazzling debut! The Sweet Taste of Muscadines is pure pleasure-a lyrical and compelling story that draws you in from the very first line and never lets you go."-Susan Mallery, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Friendship List
"The Sweet Taste of Muscadines is a deeply moving work of Southern fiction that will appeal to fans of Rebecca Wells and Delia Owens. Yet Pamela Terry's delicious mix of long-held secrets and hard-earned redemption is a unique journey into the heart of a family. A story to remember long after the last page is turned."-Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost and Found Bookshop
"The Sweet Taste of Muscadines came to me as the perfect escape. A wonderful debut novel, with everything from a dysfunctional family to a rich cast of characters."-Robert Hicks, New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan Mother
"I was enthralled by Pamela Terry's gorgeous debut novel about the pleasures and perils of family and the enduring nature of love. Give yourself the gift of imagining the fragrances of magnolia and pine while savoring The Sweet Taste of Muscadines."-Amanda Eyre Ward, New York Times bestselling author of The Jetsetters
"The Sweet Taste of Muscadines is an extraordinary and sensorial journey both geographically and emotionally. Pamela Terry offers a powerful wallop of drama, humor, and grief, all gorgeously wrapped in evocative language. . . . A story of family and of courage that begs to be read more than once."-Karen White, New York Times bestselling author of Dreams of Falling
"This moving novel reminds us of the necessity of love, the value of family connection, and the redeeming light of forgiveness. Pamela Terry seems to have a second sight, one that allows her to really see the secret workings of the heart. She writes with humor, elegance, and grace about subjects as universal and diverse as humanity itself."-Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author of The Favorite Daughter
"A mashup of Fried Green Tomatoes and You Can't Go Home Again with a sprinkling of William Faulkner."-BookPage<...
"A dazzling debut! The Sweet Taste of Muscadines is pure pleasure-a lyrical and compelling story that draws you in from the very first line and never lets you go."-Susan Mallery, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Friendship List
"The Sweet Taste of Muscadines is a deeply moving work of Southern fiction that will appeal to fans of Rebecca Wells and Delia Owens. Yet Pamela Terry's delicious mix of long-held secrets and hard-earned redemption is a unique journey into the heart of a family. A story to remember long after the last page is turned."-Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost and Found Bookshop
"The Sweet Taste of Muscadines came to me as the perfect escape. A wonderful debut novel, with everything from a dysfunctional family to a rich cast of characters."-Robert Hicks, New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan Mother
"I was enthralled by Pamela Terry's gorgeous debut novel about the pleasures and perils of family and the enduring nature of love. Give yourself the gift of imagining the fragrances of magnolia and pine while savoring The Sweet Taste of Muscadines."-Amanda Eyre Ward, New York Times bestselling author of The Jetsetters
"The Sweet Taste of Muscadines is an extraordinary and sensorial journey both geographically and emotionally. Pamela Terry offers a powerful wallop of drama, humor, and grief, all gorgeously wrapped in evocative language. . . . A story of family and of courage that begs to be read more than once."-Karen White, New York Times bestselling author of Dreams of Falling
"This moving novel reminds us of the necessity of love, the value of family connection, and the redeeming light of forgiveness. Pamela Terry seems to have a second sight, one that allows her to really see the secret workings of the heart. She writes with humor, elegance, and grace about subjects as universal and diverse as humanity itself."-Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author of The Favorite Daughter
"A mashup of Fried Green Tomatoes and You Can't Go Home Again with a sprinkling of William Faulkner."-BookPage<...
Readers Top Reviews
Lisa CampbellRich
This author could have been written this book in just a few simple sentences, as it reiterates 3 basic thoughts. 1 - I know very little about the South, may have visited once or twice, but have several opinions of that horrid, nasty place. 2 - I have had a horrible experience with “The Baptists” - they are a collective group - not individuals. They are all exactly the same with a single thought process and identical beliefs. 3 - I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re all okay - if you think it’s okay, it must be okay. Seriously, it was a total waste of my time.
NH WifeyLisa Camp
This was one of the best written books I have ever read. All the characters were well developed and believable. The relationship between Lila and Henry (brother and sister) was enviable to say the least. I wish I had that in my life. There was not a lot of personal angst in the characters that is present in so many novels today. The subject matter was relevant and interesting. This book does have a religious tone to the story but I didn't find it overwhelming the story line. I really loved this book.
Marija G CutlipNH
I could not put this book down...and I am a slow and a very picky reader.... It reads like poetry. I have no personal connection to anything South and that might have kept my palate clean for “a taste of muscadines”. This beautiful piece of art tells a story pertinent to so much we all face at some point: (if we are fortunate to find strength): love (all kinds of love), but also, the deceit and forgiveness, the sweet and sour, the liberating value of truth and the suffocating but ever powerful force of lie, the importance of leaving, but, as much, the imortance of courrage to come back. The story is being told with the most appreciation of “sweet and salty”, heat and “heat”, muscadines and blood...and such a regard for human imperfection....in an artistically tastefully sweet and poetic way. I recommended this book to every reader I am friends with.
alex28Marija G Cu
The Sweet Taste of Muscadines is a debut novel by author Pamela Terry- but- it doesn’t read like a new novel. The writing flows in this slow starting novel about three very different siblings and the mystery they uncover when they get together after their mother dies unexpectedly. Wow, I loved it. one of my favorites of 2021.
Short Excerpt Teaser
One
As a child I was afraid of tornadoes. Actually, "afraid" is a puny word to describe how I felt when an unusual stillness would thread the air of a late-spring afternoon, weaving a blanket of quiet that silenced birdsong and suspended the breeze. The skies over Wesleyan would darken to horror green, and the wind would awaken with the soul of a dervish, causing the pines and poplars to wring themselves into fraying, flailing knots. Though meant for good, the sound of the tornado siren was as welcome as a scream. As the witchy webs of lace curtains reached out for me in the wind, I would run through the house in blind panic, grabbing up my diaries and favorite photos, all the books I could carry, all the while herding a grumbling Henry before me like a wayward sheep. Into our dark rabbit hole of a cellar I would vanish like Alice to wait it out, nervous and shaking, while in my mind's eye I could clearly see the swirling evil coming right down my street, like the dark finger of God, casually tracing a line on the earth. The world was always unchanged when I reemerged, and the next hour or so was spent putting back the treasured items I'd saved from threatened obliteration while enduring the teasing of my family for my oversize, misplaced fear. Then came the afternoon of Lolly Carmichael's seventh-birthday party.
Any party at the Carmichaels' was a dress-up affair, even seventh-birthday ones, so I found myself sitting in the back of our family's green Pontiac in a pink, full-skirted dress with my feet trapped in black patent shoes, riding to the event in a sulk, on a beautiful day in May. As we neared Lolly's house, I felt a bit vindicated when I spied dark clouds rolling in, threatening rain. At least we wouldn't have to endure outside games trussed up in these clothes. But my glee was waning as we pulled up the drive to a giant's footfall of thunder. Egg-size drops of rain spattered my pink shoulders as I ran up the stairs, my beribboned present tucked underneath my arm. The front door flew open, and Mrs. Carmichael, face white-tight, called past me to my mother.
"Geneva! Get in here! There's a tornado!"
My worst fear in the world, and I was away from home in a pink dress. Mama ran inside, and we scrambled to join the rest of the party all huddled together in the center of the family room, away from the windows. A rainbow of balloons floated near the ceiling, a big number 7 written on each one in gold. A stack of presents teetered on the dining-room table, pink punch waveless in a cut-glass bowl. The tornado siren blared just then, sending shivers up our bare legs and causing Mary Ann Archer's mother to blurt out, "Oh, Jesus!" in a voice as shrill as the siren itself.
"Hush up, Jessie," my mother hissed.
Just then, as one, every balloon in the room popped, a sound that shattered our stoicism and uncorked Jessie Archer's full-throated pleas to the heavens. We scattered like frilly buckshot into every nook and cranny of that house. I grabbed Lolly, who'd frozen to the spot, wailing, and made for the basement along with the more sensible members of the crowd, my mother included. We left Mrs. Archer standing right in front of the window, hands raised in either terror or supplication, I never knew which.
If you stick a microphone in the face of someone who's been through a tornado, you can bet money they'll say the familiar line, "It sounded like a freight train." It almost seems a scripted description. But I can empirically say there's a reason for that. From my hiding place that afternoon in Lolly Carmichael's basement, that is precisely the sound I heard as I sat with my head down and my hands clasped around my knees as though bound to a railroad track with no hope of escape. I could hear it coming, hear it hit like a battering ram, hear it continue on, leaving the Carmichael house totally, eerily silent as we waited to breathe again.
Mama was the first one back up the stairs. Throwing open the basement door, she gasped when she saw the trunk of a tree sticking like a tongue depressor through the gaping mouth of the living-room wall. The air smelled sickly strong of pine, and looking up, I could see a nonchalant blue sky already pushing the darkness away to the east.
We found Mrs. Archer sprawled across the hooked rug of the family room, her right leg twisted behind her like a strand of spaghetti, her hands still raised to the ceiling, loudly praising God for her salvation, to which Mama replied as she picked up the phone to call for help, "God nothing, Jessie. If you'd been listening to God, you'd have been downstairs with the rest of us with not even a run in your stocking." Mrs. Archer had a slight limp for the rest of her days.
Maybe once you've faced down s...
As a child I was afraid of tornadoes. Actually, "afraid" is a puny word to describe how I felt when an unusual stillness would thread the air of a late-spring afternoon, weaving a blanket of quiet that silenced birdsong and suspended the breeze. The skies over Wesleyan would darken to horror green, and the wind would awaken with the soul of a dervish, causing the pines and poplars to wring themselves into fraying, flailing knots. Though meant for good, the sound of the tornado siren was as welcome as a scream. As the witchy webs of lace curtains reached out for me in the wind, I would run through the house in blind panic, grabbing up my diaries and favorite photos, all the books I could carry, all the while herding a grumbling Henry before me like a wayward sheep. Into our dark rabbit hole of a cellar I would vanish like Alice to wait it out, nervous and shaking, while in my mind's eye I could clearly see the swirling evil coming right down my street, like the dark finger of God, casually tracing a line on the earth. The world was always unchanged when I reemerged, and the next hour or so was spent putting back the treasured items I'd saved from threatened obliteration while enduring the teasing of my family for my oversize, misplaced fear. Then came the afternoon of Lolly Carmichael's seventh-birthday party.
Any party at the Carmichaels' was a dress-up affair, even seventh-birthday ones, so I found myself sitting in the back of our family's green Pontiac in a pink, full-skirted dress with my feet trapped in black patent shoes, riding to the event in a sulk, on a beautiful day in May. As we neared Lolly's house, I felt a bit vindicated when I spied dark clouds rolling in, threatening rain. At least we wouldn't have to endure outside games trussed up in these clothes. But my glee was waning as we pulled up the drive to a giant's footfall of thunder. Egg-size drops of rain spattered my pink shoulders as I ran up the stairs, my beribboned present tucked underneath my arm. The front door flew open, and Mrs. Carmichael, face white-tight, called past me to my mother.
"Geneva! Get in here! There's a tornado!"
My worst fear in the world, and I was away from home in a pink dress. Mama ran inside, and we scrambled to join the rest of the party all huddled together in the center of the family room, away from the windows. A rainbow of balloons floated near the ceiling, a big number 7 written on each one in gold. A stack of presents teetered on the dining-room table, pink punch waveless in a cut-glass bowl. The tornado siren blared just then, sending shivers up our bare legs and causing Mary Ann Archer's mother to blurt out, "Oh, Jesus!" in a voice as shrill as the siren itself.
"Hush up, Jessie," my mother hissed.
Just then, as one, every balloon in the room popped, a sound that shattered our stoicism and uncorked Jessie Archer's full-throated pleas to the heavens. We scattered like frilly buckshot into every nook and cranny of that house. I grabbed Lolly, who'd frozen to the spot, wailing, and made for the basement along with the more sensible members of the crowd, my mother included. We left Mrs. Archer standing right in front of the window, hands raised in either terror or supplication, I never knew which.
If you stick a microphone in the face of someone who's been through a tornado, you can bet money they'll say the familiar line, "It sounded like a freight train." It almost seems a scripted description. But I can empirically say there's a reason for that. From my hiding place that afternoon in Lolly Carmichael's basement, that is precisely the sound I heard as I sat with my head down and my hands clasped around my knees as though bound to a railroad track with no hope of escape. I could hear it coming, hear it hit like a battering ram, hear it continue on, leaving the Carmichael house totally, eerily silent as we waited to breathe again.
Mama was the first one back up the stairs. Throwing open the basement door, she gasped when she saw the trunk of a tree sticking like a tongue depressor through the gaping mouth of the living-room wall. The air smelled sickly strong of pine, and looking up, I could see a nonchalant blue sky already pushing the darkness away to the east.
We found Mrs. Archer sprawled across the hooked rug of the family room, her right leg twisted behind her like a strand of spaghetti, her hands still raised to the ceiling, loudly praising God for her salvation, to which Mama replied as she picked up the phone to call for help, "God nothing, Jessie. If you'd been listening to God, you'd have been downstairs with the rest of us with not even a run in your stocking." Mrs. Archer had a slight limp for the rest of her days.
Maybe once you've faced down s...
