Lila’s mother dies in their childhood home in the muscadine orchard. As the family comes together in her southern home, secrets are revealed when they find buried letters in the orchard. Coming to grips with her past, present and future, her brother helps her cope.

An amazing 2021 debut novel delving into the secrets families keep and how they can move forward. I loved this novel of southern fiction and look forward to more from this author.

Family secrets always emerge after the death of an important person, and in this book, it's no different. It was an interesting read, trying to unravel everything along with the characters. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

What a wonderful debut novel which touches on many issues such as family, religion, expectations, love, acceptance, judgement, home, forgiveness, the consequence of actions, and secrets. Beautifully written between the past, present, and future, it really pulled at my heart strings. I really enjoyed the pace of this book and how secrets and truths came into play. I can't wait to read the next book by Pamela Terry.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. I was able to find the audio version in my local library app. I enjoyed this book. I love novels that take place in the south and perfect for fans of Karen White and Sarah Addison Allen etc. Cover is beautiful

Decent read, just slow. While I feel the story line had potential it got bogged down with the authors need to be wordy and the book got lost in this. The characters could have been more engaging but it seemed they tried to hard to be what they were and it came across badly.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Thank you NetGalley, Pamela Terry and Random House for hearing my honest review. Looking forward to reading more with you
#partner

Highly entertaining, emotional, heart racing and action-packed journey filled with witty and engaging charters and exciting twists. Was so hard to put down once the emotional roller-coaster adventure began.

This seems like a very popular book. However, I have tried to read this book 3 times. I am a HUGE fan of Debbie Macomber and MKA, and I thought this would be in line with some of their work according to the summary I read. However, This book just wasn't for me. I am sorry to say, I DNF this book at 23% read. I also tried the Audiobook. Although, I liked the Narrator ultimately the book (Paper and Audio) was just to slow for me.

Southern fiction centered around the death of the matriarch of the family. Brothers and sisters have to cope with their mother’s last wishes, plus there is a mystery to solve.

I want to thank NetGalley for the advance read copy of this book. As you know, the book has been published so I’m very late in the game of reading and providing feedback. For that I apologize. This book was worth the wait. The writing was so descriptive I felt like I was the rooms and could see the characters as if I was watching this play out on the screen. Ms. Terry’s writing skills are like listening to a southern lady sitting on her front porch, sipping a glass of sweet tea, spending an afternoon telling tales. I can’t wait to read another book by this author!

DNF - Did not finish. I did not connect with the writing style or plot and will not be finishing this title. Thank you, NetGalley and Publisher for the early copy!

This debut author does justice to the Southern fiction genre. Family secrets are hidden around every corner when a family reunites after their mother's sudden death. I really enjoyed the characters of Lila and Henry, two of the family members who return home after living their lives up North for quite a while. Their sister who had chosen to remain home brings some comic relief to the story as well. I liked how friendships were rekindled and family relationships were repaired along the way. The secrets that were uncovered were not easily figured out, which made the book even more interesting to me. A good debut novel from an author I'll read again.

This is Southern literature at its best. The story will have you reading the conversations in a slow southern Georgian drawl. You can’t help but add that twang! Family dynamics play a large role in the book. And you will experience so many emotions as you flip through the pages…religion, acceptance, forgiveness, secrets, being held accountable for your actions. The author has done a wonderful job of entwining the moments of the characters’ lives. I love when I’m reading along and a sudden aha moment comes along and I gasp out loud. This is such a well written book and one that needs to go on your to-be-read list.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

What a great book with interesting characters and lots of fun in the South. Get yourself a copy and enjoy a great book!

I picked this one up a few times but it didn't hold my interest. Some of the plot setup was a bit triggering for me, so I didn't push too hard to get through it.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the early copy. All opinions are my own.

A sweet yet suspenseful book filled with family drama that can capture anyone to not put it down. A definite light read that is enjoyable in grasps you in heavily on the plot. The ending provided quite the surprise making it all the more that really hits the heart. It was refreshing to see family dynamics as a center theme of this book and how other theme points such as secrets & forgiveness can resonate with any readers own depiction of family.

I have been reading this book off and on for months. The struggle is just too real for me trying to read this. I'm sure most find the story beautifully written, I find too much has been written. I don't need the big, long descriptions of every single thing. Will I finish the book? I don't know.

What if the past you’d built your future on wasn’t really your true past? Lila is on a quest to find out what her true past was, and whether it’s meant to stay in the past.

What a beautiful family drama! Every time that the "drama" attempted to overpower the ‘family,’ Lila’s brother Henry was quick to step in and help her find forgiveness for all the slights she’d experienced at the hands of her parents or sister. No member of their family was ever really trying to be hurtful; everyone was just trying to get by.

This book was really all about the characters: stable, predictable Lila; even-keeled, caring Henry; and mama’s favorite, Abby. They’re learning their place in the world all over again. Their father died when they were almost too young to remember, and their overbearing mother has been calling all the shots since then. When their mother dies, they suddenly unearth (literally) pretty serious secrets about what they thought was their past. A visit to charming Uncle Audie helps set them on the path to uncover all the secrets that have been kept for way too long.

My favorite parts of this book are the mystery character, who turns up far from their original home. The idea of escaping and starting a whole new life is tempting to everyone at some point, right? I’d give this book 4 out of 5 stars and recommend it for those who enjoy contemporary family dramas.

I picked up and put down The Sweet Taste of Muscadines SO many times and it ended up taking me 20 days to slog through it. I can finish a good book in a few days if I'm interested. The story gets off to a very slow start, with little to no plot movement. The style of writing immediately turned me off. It's overly descriptive, bordering on inane details, and it only serves to slow down the flow of the story. Examples of this style...
"her straight back slicing through the gelatinous air like an ice-cold butter knife."
The Southern matriarch of the family dies unexpectedly and in an unusual location....out back in the muscadine arbor. Once the plot twist was revealed, the story started to build some momentum, but it was too little and too late. The characters are interesting and unique, but there is little character development. The book takes place in 2011, but I'm not sure why?? Was it written that long ago and just got published this year?
I'm not Southern, nor do I know much about typical Southern families, but the story seems very dated. The shock over someone being gay is just not a unique or surprising plot line these days. Overall, the cover is stunning and really caught my eye. The novel's ending is satisfying, but due to the style of writing and dated subject matter, I would likely not read anything else by this author. Many thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read The Sweet Taste of Muscadines.

The tears came then. Like a great wave that rose up and broke across the flimsy dunes of pride and composure behind which I'd been sheltering, they flooded my brain, erasing all thought, all control; they ran like a river whose source was the loss of my father, a river that coursed through the shadows of my childhood, past the loss of my husband, and alongside a mother I'd never really known. I wept the tears of shock, of betrayal, of anger. I wept because my life had been built on lies, and I didn't know if I had what it was going to take to rebuild a new one on the foundation I'd just been given.

A true southern tradition of family, faith and finding the truth. Lila Bruce Breedlove has come back home to Wesleyan, Georgia. A place of painful memories. Things left unsaid and not settled. Her mother has died in her own garden of their home among the Muscadines. A strange place to have died and apparently digging something from her garden of the past. Her gay brother and younger sister are handling the death of their mother in different ways. A contrast of characters. You get a deep sense of who Lila Breedlove is before and after. Her childhood. The untimely death of her father and the coolness of her mother. The protectiveness of her brother, and the flightiness of her sister. It is easy to get caught up in their pain and the discovery of a deep secret of her father's death.

It reminds me of death of what should have been but was lost because of circumstances. Their can be many types of death. The journey that Lila went on also dealt with faith. Her father was a preacher in Baptist church. The expectations of church. God verses religion. These can be conflicting issues for a reader like me but most would gravitate towards it because it makes God acceptable to us. It goes against how we are acceptable towards God. These are deep issues that cannot take up space in a book review such as this but I hope people would read the bible for themselves and reason with God. Reasoning with God is a wrestling match. It ultimately is surrendering our will to who He is. Lila journey was a wrestling match that many can relate to. It might give different results but I think it is important. I appreciated the journey!

A special thank you to Random House Publishing and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.