At Home in Covington (Ladies of Covington)

Loved the book. Just a good story full of continuing good things about the ladies and their lives in a small town setting. How getting older doesn't have to stop how we do things it just improves with age. I loved all the Covington Ladies books. The stories just kept getting better. A must read for all ladies who think life is over at 60 but it can be the start of new things we never thought we could do just dream of. Life doesn't stop it just keeps moving forward. Don't be left behind.

This is the last of the series, so far. I hope there will be more. These three ladies, of a certain age, are the main chacters in the book and are unforgettable. The author is very knowledable about Southern living and the characters, set in this small North Carolina mountain town, are written about with exceptional understanding. This book is certainly a winner and the way the three ladies enter into community life with so much dignity, laughter and grace is inspiring. This is a book about friendship, family and life. The courage and fortitude of these three ladies warms the heart and makes this book one wonderful, page turning read.

This was another one of the wonderful books in the Covington Series. Long after you finish reading these books you still think of these 3 ladies and the things they accomplished at their age. Can't wait for June 2006 for the next book.

The Ladies of Covington return in a book that you can't put down until you are finished. The ladies have returned to their new home and decide to take a cruise. They learn much about each other and their own selves and return home looking forward to many pleasant things - the birth of Hannah's grandchild for one. Without telling the whole story and spoiling the reader's enjoyment, I would say that this book shows how conflicts are resolved, how everyday things bring joy and how the ladies learn to "count their blessings."

Joy upon joy! They are here again! I cannot even begin to explain how happy I was to see this book. Grace, Hannah, and Amelia step gracefully back into our lives with this fifth installment of the Covington series. Our Ladies are now aging a bit, but that is part of what makes the Covington stories so realistic. It allows us to identify with The Ladies more as old friends than as characters in a novel. Amelia, the youngest of the trio, is now 70-years old. Grace, our loving grandmother figure, is 71-years old, and Hannah, the most robust of the three, is 75-years old. If you read the first book of this series, you will surely remember that they ran away from a nursing home to establish a life with each other in Covington. Hey, that is true intestinal fortitude! As the story begins, Charles (Grace's son Roger's longtime companion) has recently died from AIDS. The graveside funeral service is being held in December with the Ladies and a small party of mourners in attendance. Although most of their friends and neighbors had not really known Charles, they gathered at the graveside out of love and respect for Grace. Joan Medlicott's descriptive first lines set the scene: "The wind moaned as it skirted the white clapboard wall of Cove Road Church and snaked between the headstones in the small cemetery, tweaking women's coats and burrowing with stealthy fingers between men's gloves and wrists." Hannah Parrish's friend, Max, is pressing her to set a wedding date. This would be a marriage between friends for convenience only, and something about that rubs our Hannah the wrong way. Then, unexpectedly, Hannah received a mysterious diary from her past in the mail. This diary's contents have the power to turn Hannah's life upside down. It was written by a woman whose husband had been madly in love with Hannah many years ago, and with whom Hannah had a lengthy affair. Hannah had not realized that the wife even knew about the long ago affair, and her heart is tortured by the woman's entries in that diary. Amelia senses unease among the Ladies, and suggests that they all take an exotic Caribbean cruise to raise their spirits. She has brochures at the ready, and the Ladies finally agree. What an amazing time the three ladies had on their cruise can best be explained by saying that it was everything they had dreamed it would be, and more, as each of our Ladies indulged in her favorite shipboard pastime - dancing, gambling, and introspection. Upon returning from their cruise, the Ladies have wonderful adventures to tell, but there is a conflict brewing between Amelia and Hannah that has the ability to dissolve their living arrangements and disrupt their long-standing friendships. This book is filled with everyday life, as it weaves itself around family members and the problems that are faced by young and old alike. For instance, Grace learns more than she wants to know about modern dangers, as her young protégé, Lucy, becomes the victim of an Internet predat