Light on the Veranda by Ciji Ware Review for Sourcebooks

About Light on the Veranda
 Daphne Duvallon vowed never to return to the South years ago when she left her philandering fiance at the altar. Now family has called her back to Natchez, Mississippi, a city as mysterious and compelling as the ghostly voices that haunt her dreams. From a time when the oldest settlement on the Mississippi was in its heyday and vast fortunes were made and lost, Daphne begins to uncover the secrets of an ancestor whose fate is somehow linked with her own. In a compelling and mesmerizing tale, now Daphne must right the wrongs of the past, or follow the same path into tragedy...


About the Author Ciji Ware 
 Ciji Ware has been an Emmy-Award winning television producer, reporter, writer, lecturer, and radio host. A Harvard graduate in history, she has written numerous fiction and non-fiction books, including the award-winning Island of the Swans. She and her husband of three decades live in the San Francisco Bay Area.


Read an excerpt here at Sourcebooks.


My Thoughts:
Light on the Veranda is another great novel by CiJi Ware. I just love Ms. Ware's novels. They are always full of romance without being overly mushy. This novel is a richly descriptive story of past and present of local families who have lots of skeletons in their magnolia scented closets and the past has a way of catching up with the future.


A wonderfully researched story of very real people with fragile emotions and a city rich with history, of a past when women were controlled by the men in their lives and the morals of the times. When reading this book I could almost feel the humid atmosphere and feel the grandeur of the southern mansions. Ciji Ware does an awesome job of weaving the two stories together seamlessly where dreams are reality. The story is not all honeysuckle and mint juleps as there are unsavory characters and sad circumstances in both the past and the present, but the charm of the old south is definitely a lure that draws the reader in.


Light on the Veranda is the sequel to Midnight on Julia Street with a lot of the same characters. I would recommend that you read these books in order as to get a better understanding and feel for the people and locations. Again I highly recommend all of Ciji Ware's books. you will not be disappointed.


I received an ecopy of this book from Sourcebooks via Netgalley and was not monetarily compensated for my review.