Adelaide Piper

Beth Webb Hart, author of the Christy Award-nominated GRACE AT LOW TIDE, once again proves her talent as a writer in her sophomore effort, a coming-of-age novel featuring a poetic Gen-X activist debutante from South Carolina's Low Country. Yes, Hart does create fascinating characters. Adelaide Piper, though, isn't the only interesting character in the book that bears her name. Her father is a wounded Vietnam veteran who falls for his brother's Bizway pyramid scheme with all the gusto of an Amway evangelist, while her mother holds her breath as she awaits the inevitable collapse of said pyramid --- and tries to keep her collapsing family together. The rest of the characters who populate Adelaide's world in the poverty-tainted industrial town of Williamstown --- her sisters, the forever-in-trouble Dizzy and sweet little Lou; her grandparents, Mae Mae and Papa Great, who runs the town's mill and keeps more than a few people under his thumb; the ever-loyal maid Juliabelle; second-cousin Randy, who's good for a mildly romantic fling; Jif, the good friend; and Shannon, the annoying Christian convert --- all are fully developed and well rounded in the hands of a skilled writer like Hart. And those are just the hometown folks. Then we meet the students and occasional professor and administrator at Nathaniel Buxton College, a private liberal arts school in the mountains of Virginia where Adelaide is convinced she will find the intellectual and literary soulmates so lacking at home. Instead, her freshman year begins with a campus hazing tragedy that ruins the life of a friend from home and ends with a romantic date gone terribly wrong, with lots of partying and dysfunctional behavior --- in other words, typical college life --- in between. Adelaide's experience echoes the disillusionment of so many starry-eyed freshmen when they discover that academic life after high school doesn't always take place in the erudite or creative environment they envisioned. Facing the very real possibility of losing her scholarship as her grades take a post-trauma tumble, Adelaide returns home for the summer. Though so many of her dreams have been shattered and the lives of those around her are falling apart --- and though she cannot see it yet --- this is when Adelaide's life as an adult begins in earnest. That's because her Jesus freak friend Shannon, who has turned surprisingly level-headed, cuts through the you-know-what that has blinded Adelaide to the truth and gives her the faintest glimmer of hope that she will survive the mess that her life has in so many ways become. From this point on, Hart deftly steers Adelaide in the direction of the God she has never really known, through her multitude of questions about the Bible and faith, through the maze of bewildering Christianese Shannon's friends use, through the poetry she writes to try to make sense of it all --- and through the letters she writes to the long-dead C.S. Lewis as she works her way through his writing

I LOVED this book. I read it in a day and half and enjoyed everything about it. I found the Southern details charming and quite true. It spoke to my heart and was not at all "preachy". After reading it, I emailed Beth Webb Hart via her website to tell her how charming I found the novel and to my surprise she responded personally. Being from the South and experiencing some the feelings and situations that Adelaide went through made me enjoy it even more. I highly suggest this to any "Southern Belle" that is looking for a charming book about growing up in the modern day south!

This is the second novel by this talented new voice in Christian fiction and like her first, "Grace at Low Tide" it is both a well written and accurate portrayal of a young girl's life in The South as well as an inspirational story of conversion and enlightenment. Hart has a true talent for character development and setting that engages the reader in the life of her protagoninst, the college bound Adelaide Piper. After her high school graduation, Adelaide desperately seeks to flee the small mill town she grew up in and pursue the cultural and educational opportunities that she believes await her at prestigious Nathanial Buxton University. All does not go as planned however and after several dramatic and life altering events Adelaide is forced to reconsider what is important in life and where her true fulfillment may be found. This is a delightful story that delivers an important message in a way that is not preachy or heavy handed. This is a great read for anyone who enjoys southern fiction and a must read for young people questioning their way in the world.

In Williamstown, South Carolina Adelaide Piper has always wanted to attend a prestigious college to develop her poetry skills. Thus when she is accepted by the elite liberal arts Nathaniel Buxton University, she is euphoric. However her elation turns sour as she is disappointed to find the Virginia university is a party school. Still Adelaide makes the best of a bad situation even after a student dies in a hazing incident. She goes out on a date, but that turns nasty as the boy demands she put out for him. Adelaide feels alone as her father is preoccupied with making a zillion dollars through a pyramid like scheme and her mother struggles with raising her two other wilder daughters without any paternal help. Her two best friends also struggle with life's curveballs. Adelaide turns to religion as she tries to better understand why life seems so cruel. Though too much is piled on as Adelaide, must be the Job-magnet with so many ugly things happening to her family and friends, her return to religion is deftly handled and realistic as she serves as the focus of this fine story line. Her family members and her two friends face personal crisis that isolate Adelaide further and the university is a disappointment as she selected it to learn. Beth Webb Hart writes a top quality character study in which the heroine's finds spiritual salvation and solace in God. Harriet Klausner

Adelaide Piper is a very inspiring book, well written, & researched by authoress Beth Webb Hart. Most graduates would be able to relate to Adelaide's life experiences, her expectations & illusions, when trying to discover her raison d'être. As we all know, this path of discovery is full of challenges & confrontations, which are often disappointing & confusing, especially during one's maturing years as an undergraduate. Such experiences & mistakes, however, will hopefully build & strengthen one's character, as was seen by Adelaide's unfolding realisations.