Sweet Hush [Mass Market Paperback]

Though she was made fun of for selling apples from a road side stand, it only inspired her. Hush kept going. Surviving.

She was given control of Sweet Hush Hollow and custody of her five-year-old brother, Logan. Her childhood friends, Davy and Smooch, vowed to help her.

When Hush becomes pregnant with Davy's child, she reluctantly agrees to marry him, knowing he will not be faithful. Hush is still determined to make the orchards a success.

She handles the obstacles one by one, choosing to keep her family life discreet. The years fly by and Hush has turned Sweet Hush Hollow into the profitable family business she knew it could be.

Life is good, comfortable...until one day her now 23-year-old son calls her to let her know he is on his way home from college. He arrives with the President of the United State's daughter in tow. They are married and pregnant.

Hush is thrown into the public eye. Her life of secrets is threatened as she discovers a real bee charmer and ultimately her true self.

Deborah Smith did an excellent job bringing these two families through a crisis and to an understanding of each other. There were little stories within the overall story which kept the pages turning through the night.

Admittedly the presidental angle of this story is just a little hokey but Deborah Smith makes it work. The author pulls in the reader with great groundwork, inserts a strong heroine in a believable background, and then weaves a compelling story I couldn't get enough with an overall effect of a finely written concerto.

Is it just another southern tale? Yes and no. Yes it's set in the south with many colorful southern folks but the author weaves these characters into a fine tapestry where they add a richness but never overtake the story.

In addition, she adds a great hero who I came to empathize with until eventually I wanted and needed him to find his heart's desire. And he does, very satisfactorily.

Put all the components together and voila--magic. The story made me laugh and cry and root for the characters; I couldn't put the book down. This is a gem in a long run of literary disappointments. Don't pass it up.

The president and his wife are convinced that Hush has ulterior motives and that the marriage between their daughter Hush's son was somehow coerced. They vastly underestimate this Appalachian queen who rules her home, farm and county. When they send the president's cousin Nicholas Jacobek to bring the situation under control, Hush meets the only man in her life who can match her skill at charming bees. But Jacob's dark past conceals a man of kindness and of mercilessness who will do anything to protect family, even kill.

Author Deborah Smith succinctly captures the flavor of the south and of powerful matriarchs in SWEET HUSH. Readers will find it impossible to forget these rich characterizations and mesmerizing prose. Hush is blunt, fierce and determined, deserving of a hard man like Jacob. The president's wife Edwina would be easy to hate except Smith carefully reveals her vulnerabilities, devotion and motivation in a way that not only makes her understandable, but likeable despite her bitchy ways. Readers will delight in the image of Hush and Edwina throwing rotten apples at each other in the White House. Easily followed shifting points of view provide interior views of complex motives and tantalizing possibilities. In all, three love stories wind their way around the reader's heart, resulting in a must read tale reader's won't want to miss. SWEET HUSH earns the WordWeaving Award for Excellence.