Shaffer's sequel to the irresistable "Three Miss Margarets" is a wonderful blend of past and present, mystery and romance, Southern charm and gritty realism. One thing on which I have to comment, however, is the incredible disconnect between the cover of this novel and its contents! The picture on the cover shows two women in 1950's casual garb tending to a garden full of sunflowers, while the "Garrison Gardens" of the story is part of an enormous legacy (including botanical gardens, a resort, and a huge "cottage", employer to 3000 local residents) left to Laurel Selene McReady by the late Peggy Garrison, one of the Miss Margarets. Laurel, Charles Valley's former "wild child", was a surrogate daughter to Peggy and nursed her through her final illness. When faced with the demands of unscrupulous lawyer Stuart Lawrence, another of Peggy's legacies, Laurel is forced to evaluate her confidence in her own abilities and her idealization of the resort's responsibilities towards its employees and the community. Eventually her values and reality clash and Laurel is forced to come to grips with Miss Peggy's life and decisions and their profound effect on her own.
While Laurel is dealing with her modern-day dilemmas, we are also treated to the parallel story of Lily and Iva Claire Rain, two mediocre vaudevillians, a mother and daughter, who tour around during the early 1930's as the Sunshine Sisters. Throughout the novel the readers wonders about the connection between the past and the present and Shaffer does not disappoint when she eventually merges the two stories with some interesting twists.
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