The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

I was not a huge fan of Secret Life of Bees but I decided to try this book anyway because everyone else really liked Secret Life and maybe it was just the subject matter that turned me off to that book. Turns out that I did like the Mermaid Chair more. It still played with ideas of a woman deity but to a lesser extent. The description of the interactions between the characters were compelling and the unlikely or fantasy aspects of the book were reasonably believable. I appreciated how well-developed the main character was.