Dorothea Benton Frank novels are filled with smart and witty fiction that every reader wants on their bookshelf: soulful, edgy stories about realistic characters familiar to us all that explore the most deeply felt moments of life with wry humor and heart.

All Summer Long follows one charming New York couple – prominent interior designer Olivia Ritchie and her husband Nicholas Seymour, an English professor and true southern gentleman. They are seemingly polar opposites, yet magnetically drawn together and in love for more than fourteen years.

As they prepare to relocate to Charleston, S.C., Olivia, the ultimate New Yorker, has reservations about the promise she made to retire in the Lowcountry, where Nick wants to return home and lead a more peaceful life. They are moving north to south, fast pace versus slow pace and downsizing. Nick is ecstatic. Olivia is not. She can’t let Nick know that their finances are not what he thought. Her client list is evaporating, their monetary reserves are dwindling and maybe that house she picked out on Sullivans Island needs too much work. Thank God, for her assistant, Roni Larini, her right (and sometimes left) hand.

As they find themselves pondering the next step of their lives, Olivia and Nick travel with her billionaire clients and their friends and are swept up into the world of the ultra-rich and explore the globe with a cast of zany eccentrics over one tumultuous, hot summer. All as Olivia grapples with what lies ahead for her and Nick.

This is a story of how plans evolve and lives change in unexpected ways, how even those who have everything are still looking for something more. Even the most successful people can often struggle to keep things together. All Summer Long asks the ultimate question: can money buy happiness? From Sullivans Island to Necker Island to Nantucket to the beaches of Southern Spain, we’ll come to recognize the many faces of true love, love that deepens and endures but only because one woman makes a tremendous leap of faith. And that leap changes everything.

The perennial New York Times bestselling author returns with an emotionally resonant novel that illuminates the power of friendship in women’s lives, and is filled with her trademark wit, poignant and timely themes, sassy, flesh-and-blood characters, and the steamy Southern atmosphere and beauty of her beloved Carolina Lowcountry.

Few writers capture the complexities, pain, and joy of relationships–between friends, family members, husbands and wives, or lovers–as beloved New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank. In this charming, evocative, soul-touching novel, she once again takes us deep into the heart of the magical Lowcountry where three amazing middle-aged women are bonded by another amazing woman’s death.

Through their shared loss they forge a deep friendship, asking critical questions. Who was their friend and what did her life mean? Are they living the lives they imagined for themselves? Will they ever be able to afford to retire? How will they maximize their happiness? Security? Health? And ultimately, their own legacies?

A plan is conceived and unfurls with each turn of the tide during one sweltering summer on the Isle of Palms. Without ever fully realizing how close they were to the edge, they finally triumph amid laughter and maybe even newfound love.

“Dottie Frank’s books are sexy and hilarious. She has staked out the lowcountry of South Carolina as her personal literary property.”
–Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides

Bulls Island is a supremely satisfying tale of honor, chance, and star-crossed love, infused with Southern wit, grace, and charm, from the phenomenal New York Times bestseller Dorothea Benton Frank. The much beloved author of Plantation, Return to Sullivan’s Island, Land of Mango Sunsets, and a host of other winning novels of the North Carolina lowcountry, Frank stands tall alongside Anne Rivers Siddons, Sue Monk Kidd, Rebecca Wells and the other masters of contemporary southern women’s fiction. Devoted Dottie Frank fans and newcomers alike will adore this sun-drenched story of the uncomfortable homecoming of a former Bulls Islander who plans to transform the unspoiled paradise for profit…and her inevitable reencounter with the scion of a wealthy family whom she once was scheduled to marry until cruel innuendo destroyed their engagement.

The Lowcountry of South Carolina is where By Invitation Only begins at a barbecue engagement party thrown by Diane English Stiftel, her brother Floyd, and her parents to celebrate her son’s engagement. On this gorgeous, magical night, the bride’s father, Alejandro Cambria, a wealthy power broker whose unbelievably successful career in private equity made him one of Chicago’s celebrated elite, discovers the limits and possibilities of cell phone range. While the mother of the bride, Susan Kennedy Cambria, who dabbles in the world of public relations and believes herself deserving of every square inch of her multimillion-dollar penthouse and imaginary carrara marble pedestal, learns about moonshine and dangerous liaisons.

Soon By Invitation Only zooms to Chicago, where the unraveling accelerates. Nearly a thousand miles away from her comfortable, familiar world, Diane is the antithesis of the bright lights and super-sophisticated guests attending her son Fred’s second engagement party. Why a second party? Maybe it had been assumed that the first one wouldn’t be up to snuff? Fred is marrying Shelby Cambria, also an only child. The Cambrias’ dearest wish is for their daughter to be happy. If Shelby wants to marry Frederick, aka Fred, they will not stand in her way–although Susan does hope her friends won’t think her daughter is marrying more than a few degrees beneath her socially. At the same time, Diane worries that her son will be lost to her forever.

By Invitation Only is a tale of two families, one struggling to do well, one well to do, and one young couple–the privileged daughter of Chicago’s creme de la creme and the son of hard -working Southern peach farmers.

Dorothea Benton Frank offers a funny, sharp, and deeply empathetic novel of two very different worlds–of limousines and pickup trucks, caviars and pigs, skyscrapers and ocean spray–filled with a delightful cast of characters who all have something to hide and a lot to learn. A difference in legal opinions, a headlong dive from grace, and an abrupt twist will reveal the truth of who they are and demonstrate, when it truly counts, what kind of grit they have. Are they living the life they want, what regrets do they hold, and how would they remake their lives if they were given the invitation to do so?

By Invitation Only is classic Dorothea Benton Frank–a mesmerizing Lowcountry Tale that roars with spirit, humor, and truth, and forces us to reconsider our notions of what it means to be a Have or a Have Not.

“Dottie Frank’s books are sexy and hilarious. She has staked out the lowcountry of South Carolina as her personal literary property.”
—Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides and South of Broad

The incomparable Dorothea Benton Frank is back with her latest Lowcountry Novel, Folly Beach. As she has with Lowcountry Summer, Return to Sullivans Island, Land of Mango Sunsets, and so many other delightful literal excursions to this magical Southern locale, the perennial New York Times bestselling author enchants readers with a heart-warming tale of loss, acceptance, family, and love—as a woman returns to the past to find her  future. Folly Beach is a constant delight from “a masterful storyteller” (Booklist) who has already secured her place alongside Anne Rivers Siddons, Sue Monk Kidd, Rebecca Wells, Barbara Delinsky and other contemporary queens of bestselling women’s fiction.

The rich atmosphere of South Carolina, both Hilton Head and Charleston, is brought vividly to life by Dorothea Benton Frank, a South Carolina native who, with her exquisitely evocative prose, makes you smell the sea air, see the palmettos, and savor the sweet tea, but this time it comes with a side of antipasti.

Hilton Head, South Carolina. Retirement heaven — at least it’s supposed to be, but for Big Al and Connie, the move from New Jersey to this southern paradise has been fraught with just a few complications. Especially for their daughter, Grace.

Well, that’s what she likes to be called. Her family insists on Maria Graziella. Seriously, enough with the Neopolitan. That might have been okay in New Jersey but now it’s just plain silly and Grace at thirty-one is, horror of horrors, still unmarried. No wonder her family drives her crazy. Well, that and the fact that she’s living with the man she would marry if they both weren’t so commitment phobic. Michael is a doctor and a scientist and Grace has a good idea that he’s also an atheist. Over the years, Grace has become a bit ambivalent about her faith but her family is as old-fashioned Italian as they get. The stage is set for a major showdown that might just change Grace’s outlook on life, family, and the new South.

Performed by Susan Bennett

The rich atmosphere of South Carolina, Hilton Head and Charleston, is brought vividly to life by Dorothea Benton Frank, a South Carolina native who, with her exquisitely evocative prose, makes you smell the sea air, see the palmettos, and savor the sweet tea, but this time it comes with a side of antipasti.

Hilton Head, a South Carolina retirement heaven–at least it’s supposed to be, but for Big Al and Connie Russo, the move from New Jersey to this southern paradise has been fraught with just a few complications. Especially for their daughter, Grace.

Well, that’s what she likes to be called. Her family insists on Maria Graziella. Seriously, enough with the Neapolitan. That might have been okay in New Jersey, but now it’s just plain silly, and Grace at thirty-two is, horror of horrors, still unmarried. No wonder her family drives her crazy. Well, that and the fact that she’s living with the man she would marry if they both weren’t so commitment phobic. Michael is a doctor and a scientist and Grace is pretty sure he’s also an atheist. Over the years, Grace has become a bit ambivalent about her faith, but her family is as old-fashioned Italian as they come. So the stage is set for a major showdown that just might change Grace’s outlook on life, family, and the New South.

Dorothea Benton Frank is a treasure of American letters with numerous New York Times best-sellers to her credit and a portfolio full of critical acclaim. “Mixing high drama and high jinks” (Booklist), her third Lowcountry novel follows the fortunes of the dysfunctional Abbot family. Looking to set her life aright, Anna Lutz Abbot returns to her South Carolina lowcountry hometown. And as she attempts to right past wrongs, Anna receives help and support from a quirky cast of lovable locals sure to endear themselves to listeners.

“Frank…writes with genuine adoration for and authority on the South Carolina Lowcountry from which she sprang….[Her] stuff is never escapist fluff–it’s the real deal.”
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Return to Tall Pines in the long-awaited sequel to Dorothea Benton Frank’s beloved bestseller Plantation. Lowcountry Summer is the story of the changing anatomy of a family after the loss of its matriarch, sparkling with the inimitable Dot Frank’s warmth and humor. The much-beloved New York Times bestselling author follows the recent success of Return to Sullivans Island, Bulls Island, and Land of Mango Sunsets with a tale rich in atmosphere and unforgettable scenes of Southern life, once again placing her at the dais, alongside Anne Rivers Siddons, Sue Monk Kidd, Rebecca Wells, Pat Conroy, and other masters of contemporary Southern fiction.

The queen of sassy Southern fiction.
—Charlotte Observer

“Dottie Frank’s books are sexy and hilarious. She has staked out the lowcountry of South Carolina as her personal literary property.”
–Pat Conroy, Author of The Prince of Tides and South of Broad

New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank is back home in the Carolina lowcountry, spinning a tale that brims with the warmth, charm, heart, and humor that has become her trademark. Porch Lights is a stirring, emotionally rich multigenerational story–a poignant tale of life, love, and transformation–as a nurse, returning to Sullivans Island from the Afghanistan War, finds her life has been irrevocably altered by tragedy…and now must rediscover love and purpose with the help of her son and aging mother. An evocative visit to enchanting Sullivans Island with its unique pluff mud beaches, palmetto trees, and colorful local lore–a novel filled with unforgettable characters, and enlivened by tales of the notorious Blackbeard and his bloodthirsty pirate crew and eerie Edgar Allen Poe stories–Porch Lights stands tall among the very best works of not only Dottie Frank, but Anne Rivers Siddons, Rebecca Wells, Pat Conroy, and other masters of the modern Southern novel as well.

“If I could only read one writer from now until the end of my life, it would be Dorothea Benton Frank.” –Elin Hilderbrand, the New York Times bestselling author

Immerse yourself in the enchanting world of New York Times bestselling author Dorthea Benton Frank’s Carolina Lowcountry in this evocative tale that returns at long last to her beloved Sullivan’s Island.

Beekeeper Holly McNee Kensen quietly lives in a world of her own on Sullivan’s Island, tending her hives and working at the local island library. Holly calls her mother The Queen Bee because she’s a demanding hulk of a woman. Her mother, a devoted hypochondriac, might be unaware that she’s quite ill but that doesn’t stop her from tormenting Holly. To escape the drama, Holly’s sister Leslie married and moved away, wanting little to do with island life. Holly’s escape is to submerge herself in the lives of the two young boys next door and their widowed father, Archie.

Her world is upended when the more flamboyant Leslie returns and both sisters, polar opposites, fixate on what’s happening in their neighbor’s home. Is Archie really in love with that awful ice queen of a woman? If Archie marries her, what will become of his little boys? Restless Leslie is desperate for validation after her imploded marriage, squandering her favors on any and all takers. Their mother ups her game in an uproarious and theatrical downward spiral. Scandalized Holly is talking to her honey bees a mile a minute, as though they’ll give her a solution to all the chaos. Maybe they will.

Queen Bee is a classic Lowcountry Tale, warm, wise and hilarious, roars with humanity and a dropperful of whodunit added for good measure by an unseen hand. In her twentieth novel, Dorothea Benton Frank brings us back to her beloved island with an unforgettable story where the Lowcountry magic of the natural world collides with the beat of the human heart.

“Her books are funny, sexy, and usually damp with seawater.”

–Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides

In Return to Sullivans Island, Dorothea Benton Frank revisits the enchanted landscape of South Carolina’s Lowcountry made famous in her beloved New York Times bestseller Sullivans Island. Frank focuses on the next generation of Hamiltons and Hayes, earning high praise from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which writes, “Frank brings to vivid life the rich landscape and its unpretentious folks….A reader need only close her eyes for a moment to feel that thick-sticky heat, smell the wild salt marshes.” If you enjoy getting lost in the works of Anne Rivers Siddons, Rebecca Wells, and Pat Conroy–novels brimming with atmosphere and strong Southern charm–you are going to love Dotty Frank’s Return to Sullivans Island.

New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank returns to her magical Lowcountry of South Carolina in this bewitching story of marriage, love, family, and friendship that is infused with her warm and engaging earthy humor and generous heart.

One enchanted summer, two couples begin a friendship that will last more than twenty years and transform their lives.

A chance meeting on the Isle of Palms, one of Charleston’s most stunning barrier islands, brings former sweethearts, Adam Stanley and Eve Landers together again. Their respective spouses, Eliza and Carl, fight sparks of jealousy flaring from their imagined rekindling of old flames. As Adam and Eve get caught up on their lives, their partners strike up a deep friendship–and flirt with an unexpected attraction–of their own.

Year after year, Adam, Eliza, Eve, and Carl eagerly await their reunion at Wild Dunes, a condominium complex at the island’s tip end, where they grow closer with each passing day, building a friendship that will withstand financial catastrophe, family tragedy, and devastating heartbreak. The devotion and love they share will help them weather the vagaries of time and enrich their lives as circumstances change, their children grow up and leave home, and their twilight years approach.

Bursting with the intoxicating richness of Dorothea Benton Frank’s beloved Lowcountry–the sultry sunshine, cool ocean breezes, icy cocktails, and starry velvet skies–Same Beach, Next Year is a dazzling celebration of the infrangible power of friendship, the enduring promise of summer, and the indelible bonds of love.

Theodora is the matriarch of a family that has grown into a bunch of truculent knuckleheads. While she’s finally gotten them all together in South Carolina to celebrate, this Christmas looks nothing like the extravagant, homey holidays of her childhood.

What happened to the days when Christmas meant tables groaning with home-cooked goodies, over-the-top decorations, and long chats in front of the fire with Pearl, her grandmother’s beloved housekeeper and closest confidante?

Luckily for Theodora, a special someone who heard her plea for help arrives, with pockets full of enough Gullah magic and common sense to make Theodora’s Christmas the love-filled miracle it’s meant to be.

Hurricane season begins early and rumbles all summer long, well into September. Often people’s lives reflect the weather and The Hurricane Sisters is just such a story.

Once again New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank takes us deep into the heart of her magical South Carolina Lowcountry on a tumultuous journey filled with longings, disappointments, and, finally, a road toward happiness that is hard earned. There we meet three generations of women buried in secrets. The determined matriarch, Maisie Pringle, at eighty, is a force to be reckoned with because she will have the final word on everything, especially when she’s dead wrong. Her daughter, Liz, is caught up in the classic maelstrom of being middle-age and in an emotionally demanding career that will eventually open all their eyes to a terrible truth. And Liz’s beautiful twenty-something daughter, Ashley, whose dreamy ambitions of her unlikely future keeps them all at odds.

Luckily for Ashley, her wonderful older brother, Ivy, is her fierce champion but he can only do so much from San Francisco where he resides with his partner. And Mary Beth, her dearest friend, tries to have her back but even she can’t talk headstrong Ashley out of a relationship with an ambitious politician who seems slightly too old for her.

Actually, Ashley and Mary Beth have yet to launch themselves into solvency. Their prospects seem bleak. So while they wait for the world to discover them and deliver them from a ramen-based existence, they placate themselves with a hare-brained scheme to make money but one that threatens to land them in huge trouble with the authorities.

So where is Clayton, Liz’s husband? He seems more distracted than usual. Ashley desperately needs her father’s love and attention but what kind of a parent can he be to Ashley with one foot in Manhattan and the other one planted in indiscretion? And Liz, who’s an expert in the field of troubled domestic life, refuses to acknowledge Ashley’s precarious situation. Who’s in charge of this family? The wake-up call is about to arrive.

The Lowcountry has endured its share of war and bloodshed like the rest of the South, but this storm season we watch Maisie, Liz, Ashley, and Mary Beth deal with challenges that demand they face the truth about themselves. After a terrible confrontation they are forced to rise to forgiveness, but can they establish a new order for the future of them all?

Frank, with her hallmark scintillating wit and crisp insight, captures how a complex family of disparate characters and their close friends can overcome anything through the power of love and reconciliation. This is the often hilarious, sometimes sobering, but always entertaining story of how these unforgettable women became The Hurricane Sisters.

Dorothea Benton Frank is one of America’s most insightful writers weaving highly addictive tales of the conundrums of life with hilarity and heat. Now, in The Land of Mango Sunsets, Frank gives us one woman’s journey toward a hard-won truth–life isn’t always what it appears to be, and the sooner you realize that pride won’t keep you warm at night, the happier you will be. Oh, and one other thing–a truly joyous life comes with a generous heart.

Meet Miriam Elizabeth Swanson, in a full-blown snit, buoyed by a fabulous cast who run the gamut from insufferable to wonderful. First is the arrival of Liz Harper, Miriam’s tenant from Birmingham, who sets a new cycle in motion. Then her other tenant, Kevin, stalwart companion with more style than Cary Grant, shakes Miriam out of her fog to see which battles are worth the fight. Next, her estranged son announces he’s marrying a Jamaican woman. And what about her ex-husband, Charles, and that sordid lingerie model of his? Well, Harry, her African Gray parrot, has plenty of opinions. Finally, you’ll laugh and cry when she meets a man named Harrison who changes her into a gal named Mellie.

Miriam spins out from the revolving door of her postured life as a Manhattan quasi-socialite while she thirsts, no, starves for recognition. How did she become what she hates the most, and what does she endure to realize it? And where are the answers? It takes a few spins, dips, and one spectacular fall until Miriam gets her head on straight. Then in a whoosh she’s off to the enchanted and mysterious land of Sullivans Island, deep in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.

Told straight from the heart in Frank’s vivid, highly entertaining style, The Land of Mango Sunsets just might be her finest work to date. If you decide to read this book, don’t make plans to do anything else for a while.

Dorothea Benton Frank is one of America’s most insightful writers weaving highly addictive tales of the conundrums of life with hilarity and heat. Now, in The Land of Mango Sunsets, Frank gives us one woman’s journey toward a hard-won truth–that life isn’t always what it appears to be, and the sooner you realize that pride won’t keep you warm at night, the happier you will be.

Meet Miriam Elizabeth Swanson, in a full-blown snit, buoyed by a fabulous cast who run the gamut from insufferable to wonderful. Miriam spins out from the revolving door of her postured life as a Manhattan quasi socialite while she thirsts, no, starves for recognition. How did she become what she hates the most and what does she endure to realize it? And where are the answers? It takes a few spins, dips and one spectacular fall until Miriam gets her head on straight. Then in a whoosh she’s off to the enchanted and mysterious land of Sullivans Island, deep in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.

Told straight from the heart in her vivid, highly entertaining style, The Land of Mango Sunsets just might be Frank’s finest work to date. If you plan to listen to this book, don’t make plans to do anything else for a while.

Experience the sultry Southern atmosphere of Atlanta and the magic of the Carolina Lowcountry in this funny and poignant tale of one audacious woman’s quest to find the love she deserves, from New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank.

Leslie Anne Greene Carter is The Last Original Wife among her husband Wesley’s wildly successful Atlanta social set. His cronies have all traded in the mothers of their children they promised to love and cherish–’til death did them part–for tanned and toned young Barbie brides.

If losing the social life and close friends she adored wasn’t painful enough, a series of setbacks shake Les’s world and push her to the edge. She’s had enough of playing the good wife to a husband who thinks he’s doing her a favor by keeping her around. She’s not going to waste another minute on people she doesn’t care to know. Now, she’s going to take some time for herself–in the familiar comforts and stunning beauty of Charleston, her beloved hometown. In her brother’s stately historic home, she’s going to reclaim the carefree girl who spent lazy summers sharing steamy kisses with her first love on Sullivans Island. Along Charleston’s live oak- and palmetto-lined cobblestone streets, under the Lowcountry’s dazzling blue sky, Les will indulge herself with icy cocktails, warm laughter, divine temptation and bittersweet memories. Daring to listen to her inner voice, she will realize what she wants . . . and find the life of which she’s always dreamed.

Told in the alternating voices of Les and Wes, The Last Original Wife is classic Dorothea Benton Frank: an intoxicating tale of family, friendship, self-discovery, and love, that is as salty as a Lowcountry breeze and as invigorating as a dip in Carolina waters on a sizzling summer day.