Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid Chair is the soulful tale of Jessie Sullivan, a middle-aged woman whose stifled dreams and desires take shape during an extended stay on Egret Island, where she is caring for her troubled mother, Nelle. Like Kidd's stunning debut novel, The Secret Life of Bees, her highly anticipated follow up evokes the same magical sense of whimsy and poignancy.

While Kidd places an obvious importance on the role of mysticism and legend in this tale, including the mysterious mermaid's chair at the center of the island's history, the relationships between characters is what gives this novel its true weight. Once she returns to her childhood home, Jessie is forced to confront not only her relationship with her estranged mother, but her other emotional ties as well. After decades of marriage to Hugh, her practical yet conventional husband, Jessie starts to question whether she is craving an independence she never had the chance to experience. After she meets Brother Thomas, a handsome monk who has yet to take his final vows, Jessie is forced to decide whether passion can coexist with comfort, or if the two are mutually exclusive. As her soul begins to reawaken, Jessie must also confront the circumstances of her father's death, a tragedy that continues to haunt Jessie and Nelle over thirty years later.

By boldly tackling such major themes as love, betrayal, grief, and forgiveness, The Mermaid Chair forces readers to question whether moral issues can always be interpreted in black or white. It is this ability to so gracefully present multiple sides of a story that reinforces Kidd's reputation as a well-respected modern literary voice. --Gisele Toueg

A dazzling novel of passion and spirituality—the instant blockbuster bestseller from the author of The Secret Life of Bees

Sue Monk Kidd’s phenomenal debut, The Secret Life of Bees, became a runaway bestseller that is still on the New York Times bestseller list more than two years after its paperback publication. Now, in her luminous new novel, Kidd has woven a transcendent tale that will thrill her legion of fans. Telling the story of Jessie Sullivan—a love story between a woman and a monk, a woman and her husband, and ultimately a woman and her own soul—Kidd charts a journey of awakening and self-discovery illuminated with a brilliance that only a writer of her ability could conjure.

“Book clubs, start your engines. . . . [The Mermaid Chair] is a tapestry strengthened by bonds between women that bridge pain and loss.”
—USA Today
“The pages all but turn themselves.” —Parade
“Soulful in its probing of the human heart.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Kidd draws connections from the feminine to the divine to the erotic that a lesser writer wouldn’t see, and might not have the guts to follow.” —Time
“It’s hard to put this book down for things like eating and sleeping.” —Elle

Kidd writes beautifully, and she masterfully captures the minds of the three character she most fully develops, Jessie, Hugh and Brother Thomas. I find few writers who can handle the subtle movements--the self-serving but convincing self-justifications of an affair, the searing pain of the cuckold that utterly trivializes a rational grasp of the reasons it happened, the discovery, and more--of the common love triangle. Kidd does with a deft touch that will make you weep.

I absolutely loved "Secret Life of Bees", so I couldn't wait to read another of Sue Monk Kidd. However, "The Mermaid Chair" is quite possibly the worst book I have ever read! First of all, the plot is incredibly close to "Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood." Could she not think of anything on her own? Second, the supposed "plot twist" was nothing more than a mere paragraph of nonsense that left me extremely disappointed. Finally, as this book is supposed to be powerful to women; however, it leaves the reader with the idea that you need a man to be complete. I can't believe I actually finished it! Such a disappointment.

I read while taking care of my mother.
cant you just read a book to be taken away from your own situation.
Fiction after all is what it is about
It did for me just what I needed at the time.

I'd read The Secret Life of Bees a couple years ago, and while I enjoyed it, it didn't amaze me. This book did.

Jessie is a woman who has done what so many others have; She had given up her passion, dreams, and her identity to being a wife and a mother. When she goes back to the island where she grew up, she grew into the passionate, inquisitive woman she used to be. I don't believe this book is a romance; it's a woman who finds herself and redeems herself in her own eyes.

My only slight disappointment in this book was that her and Hugh reconcile. I don't believe that there is any coming back from cheating, which is what she did. And while she says that she kept her newfound independence, I don't believe so. And the book ends too quickly to really give any evidence of that she did.

Overall this was a beautifully written tale of a woman traveling to find herself and learning to love what she found inside.

I went out and bought this immediately after finishing Secret Life of Bees, because I had enjoyed that so much. Unfortunately, I had to force myself to finish it! The story dragged, and the foreshadowing took away whatever mystery there might have been. Hated the main character (Jessie) - her self reflection was childish & her "self-discovery" was trite and stereotypical. Now, all that said - Kidd writes beautifully. This one just needed a better story & better characters...