Weekly Reader: The Hideaway by Lauren K. Denton: A Sweet Somewhat Typical Southern Tale About Coming Home

Weekly Reader: The Hideaway by Lauren K. Denton; A Sweet Somewhat Typical Southern Tale About Coming Home

By Julie Sara Porter,

Bookworm Reviews

The Hideaway is not big on plot or suspense. It's a paint-by-numbers family story long on Southern gentility and sweetness. However it is a sweet story with two strong female protagonists and carries the theme of coming home.

Sara Jenkins is a modern New Orleans businesswoman with an interest in the past. She owns an antique shop and buys and restores old furniture. She thinks that she is living a fulfilled life until she hears her grandmother Mags died.

Mags reared Sara after the death of Sara’s parents. The two lived in Sweet Bay, Alabama one of those sweet Southern small towns that seem to exist in these type of books. The type of town where everyone is eccentric but good-natured and welcomes visitors with open arms. In Sweet Bay, Mags owned The Hideaway, a boarding house so welcoming that some visitors arrived in the ‘60’s and stayed for life.

 While Sara loved her grandmother and the Hideaway, she went through the typical teen angst and embarrassment towards Mags’ upfront sassiness and her overalls and bird’s nest hats. Upon adulthood, Sara fled for New Orleans and an upwardly mobile life until Mags’ death calls Sara back to Sweet Bay and she inherits the Hideaway according to her grandmother's will.

The Hideaway is actually two stories in one. Sara’s subplot is a standard “former city dwellers acquaint  themselves with rural life, falls in love with a local, and fights the nasty developer who wants to buy the town from under them.” There isn't a thing in Sara’s plot that hasn't appeared many times before in other books and movies. Sara is an interesting character as she goes through these regular plot angles. Her passages with romantic lead, Crawford are adorable and she bonds really well with the residents of the Hideaway. Even her moments with the nasty developer, Sammy Grosvenor aren't as bad as they could be. He turns out to be a somewhat decent guy who is able to compromise with the locals. The modern day chapters are filled with so much sugar and sweetness that the Reader will either give an adorable sigh or a nauseous gulp.

The real meat to the book belongs to Mags. As Sara rebuilds the Hideaway, she finds photographs of her grandmother as a young woman as well as mementos and pictures of a handsome young man who is definitely not her grandfather.

 Alternating with Sara’s chapters are flashbacks of Mags’ life. She recounts her life as the daughter of a wealthy prominent family and married to a rich businessman. She would have lived a life in high society until her husband left her for another woman. Rather than remaining married and ignoring her husband's affairs like her parents want, Mags skips town and stumbles upon the Hideaway by accident.

Mags is a fun bright spot in what would otherwise be a predictable book. She makes her subplot more memorable than Sara’s plot. She rebels against her parents when they urge her to return to her husband and vows to create her own life in Sweet Bay.

 When she arrives in Sweet Bay, Mags is instantly attracted to the boarding house and it's eccentric residents particularly the beatniks who have made it their new home. She also falls in love with William, a carpenter. The transformation that changes Mags from a frothy socialite to a strong-willed independent woman makes for great reading.

The Hideaway has a strong theme of home. This is emphasized by the character's feelings towards the Hideaway. They, especially Sara and Mags, feel an instant connection and belonging to the place. It is easy to see why they work so hard to make the Hideaway a home. The book is predictable but it conveys a sense of belonging that Mags and Sara give to each other, everyone around them, and the Reader.