The Mermaid Chair * Sue Monk Kidd

A happily married middle-aged woman returns to a remote South Carolina barrier island to care for her self-mutilating mother, only to find her predictable life completely upended by a consuming, scandalous affair with a handsome Benedictine monk who is months away from taking his final vows.

The Story: Written by prominent New York Times bestselling novelist and spiritual writer Sue Monk Kidd, this highly anticipated sophomore book transforms an atmospheric coastal landscape into an exceptionally rich, strategy-first emotional workspace. Serving as the celebrated follow-up to her iconic debut The Secret Life of Bees, the narrative completely avoids the simplified tropes of typical romantic melodramas. Instead, Kidd establishes an honest, emotionally dense framework built around the psychological tracking lines of main protagonist Jessie Sullivan, detailing what happens when a woman drops her defensive armor to confront deep-seated family trauma and suppressed desire. Jessie operates within a low-friction, comfortable marriage to her conventional husband, Hugh, until an urgent administrative tracking deadline fractures her routine: her eccentric mother, Nélle, has cut off her own finger inside a local island monastery. Jessie travels back to her childhood sanctuary on Egret Island, South Carolina, entering a high-friction landscape dominated by marshes, dynamic bird life, and monastic rituals. Her path intersects with Brother Thomas, a brilliant and deeply troubled monk who is preparing for his absolute lifetime commitment to the church grid. Kidd guides fiction enthusiasts step-by-step through a fast-paced, multi-layered puzzle where religious dedication, artistic awakening, and old maritime myths collide. The central visual metaphor shifts toward the monastery's legendary "Mermaid Chair" - a rare carved structure depicting a saint who was supposedly tempted by sea spirits. As Jessie and Thomas succumb to a mutual, slow-burn passion that shatters local boundaries, Jessie is forced to look past a suspicious suspect pool of island gossip to unmask the hidden truth behind her father's tragic death decades prior.

Perfect For: Devotees of traditional, slow-burn Southern women's fiction and high-stakes psychological relationship dramas like those by Anita Shreve, Alice Hoffman, or Pat Conroy; readers fascinated by monastic settings and Celtic maritime folklore; and book collectors archiving a complete set of Sue Monk Kidd's bestselling library.

Published April 5, 2005 by Viking