Love, Alice

Barbara Davis

Dec 2016 · Sold by Penguin

About this eBook

A sweeping southern women’s fiction novel about forgiving the past one letter at a time—from the author of When Never Comes.

A year ago, Dovie Larkin’s life was shattered when her fiancé committed suicide just weeks before their wedding. Now, plagued by guilt, she has become a fixture at the cemetery where William is buried, visiting his grave daily, waiting for answers she knows will never come.

Then one day, she sees an old woman whose grief mirrors her own. Fascinated, she watches the woman leave a letter on a nearby grave. Dovie ignores her conscience and reads the letter—a mother’s plea for forgiveness to her dead daughter—and immediately needs to know the rest of the story.

As she delves deeper, a collection of letters from the cemetery’s lost and found  begins to unravel a decades-old mystery involving one of Charleston’s wealthiest families. But even as Dovie seeks to answer questions about another woman’s past—questions filled with deception, betrayal, and heartbreaking loss—she starts to discover the keys to love, forgiveness, and finally embracing the future...

Ratings and reviews

Love, Alice by Barbara Davis is the story about grieving and moving beyond it. Dovie Larkin is thirty-six years old and lost her artist fiancé a year ago. He committed suicide two weeks before their wedding. Dovie cannot move on because she has unanswered questions. William, her fiancé, did not leave a note. Dovie does not understand why he killed himself. Was she not good enough for him? Dovie takes her lunch each day at William’s grave (which people think is weird). Dovie has been forgetful and flighty the last year. She needs to get her act together or she will lose her job at the museum (and she worked very hard for her promotion). Dovie is a curator at the Charleston Museum of Cultural Arts and is organizing a fundraiser for the new art education wing (with the help of the Austin Tate). One day in the cemetery Dovie sees a woman who seems to be as grief stricken as Dovie. Dovie watches her leave a letter at the grave that has Alice’s Angel on it. Dovie takes the letter and reads it. This letter leads Dovie on a journey to help Dora. It also sets Dovie on a path to get the answers she needs to help her move on with her life. Love, Alice is about Dovie finding answers she feels she needs by helping Dora. Ultimately, though, the book is a romance novel (it dives into a romance between Austin Tate and Dovie). The story is set in 2005 with the letters taking the reader back in time. I liked Dora and her daughter Alice’s story. It was the best part of the book. It was interesting how the author tied everything together. I found the “surprises” were no surprise. The reader can easily figure them out in advance of the reveal. I wanted to give Dovie a good shake and tell her to open her eyes. Dovie was too old to not see what was right in front of her (it was so obvious). She is not some naïve twenty-something. I give Love, Alice 2.5 out of 5 stars. I found the book to be a too long. It desperately needed some rewriting and trimming. There are many slow sections in the book. Dovie does her “thinking” and “questioning” which gets tedious (I skimmed through these areas). Love, Alice was not my type of book. If you are looking for a feel-good romance novel, then you will enjoy Love, Alice.

About the author

After spending more than a decade as an executive in the jewelry business, Barbara Davis decided to leave the corporate world to finally pursue her lifelong passion for writing. She is the author of When Never Comes; Love, Alice; Summer at Hideaway Key; The Wishing Tide; and The Secrets She Carried. She currently lives in Rochester, New Hampshire, with her husband Tom, and their beloved ginger cat, Simon, and is working on her next book.