By Carla Neggers
Publisher: Mira
Release Date: January 31, 2012
Four Stars
Olivia Frost has spent the past five years as a graphic designer with one of Boston’s most prestigious studios, eventually landing plum clients and winning awards for her work, but her dream is to transform the early 19th-century house she bought in her hometown, Knights Bridge, Massachusetts, into a site for weddings, showers, teas, and small one-day conferences. When the questionable ethics of a friend leads to the defection of Olivia’s biggest client, Olivia decides it’s time to return to Knights Bridge and turn her dream into reality. A week later, with her sister’s help, she’s packing up and leaving Boston.
Olivia’s plans for the house she calls The Farm at Carriage
Hill are coming together except for the house next door with a trash-strewn yard
that makes it an eyesore in the picturesque setting. With the help of her
friend Maggie, she locates the current owner who purchased the house from Grace
Webster, a retired spinster English teacher in her nineties. Believing the
owner to be an older man, Olivia writes to him at the California address Maggie
located, offering to clean the yard herself.
Secrets of the Lost Summer has a strong regional flavor. The
history of Knights Bridge and the surrounding area is more than mere background;
it is integral to the plot of this story. Early spring in New England with its
mix of the reluctant loosening of winter’s hold and harbingers of spring and
the promise of renewal served as a symbolic setting for the betrayal and the
dream that send Olivia back to Knight’s Bridge. Both Olivia and Dylan are
interesting, engaging characters. The focus is on their developing
relationship, but woven into the story are also threads of the relationship
between Olivia’s mother and father, between her sister and the man her sister
loves, and the older love story buried as deeply as the remains of the towns
that lie beneath the reservoir’s waters. Since I have a weakness for genius
geek heroes, I’m hoping Neggers follows up with a story for Dylan’s friend and
partner Noah. If you like layered stories with a rich sense of place and a
touch of mystery, I recommend this book.
How important is setting to you? Are you a fan of the
still-growing subgenre of small-town contemporary romance?
To celebrate the start of what promises to be a stellar
reading year for fans of romance fiction, I am giving away two books this week.
One person will be randomly selected from those who comment on today’s post to
receive a hardback copy of Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor, the first book in
Lisa Kleypas’s Friday Harbor series. You’ll get it just in time to read it
before Rainshadow Road, Book 2 in the series, is released in late February. A randomly selected commenter fron Friday’s
blog will receive a copy of Eloisa James’s just-released fairy tale book, The Duke Is Mine, one of my three top
of the top reads of 2011.
Note: Sorry, folks. Due to legal issues and shipping costs, only residents of North America are eligible for giveaways.
Note: Sorry, folks. Due to legal issues and shipping costs, only residents of North America are eligible for giveaways.
6 comments:
Janga, this book seems to have similarities to Sheryl Woods's 'Amazing Gracie'. Gracie is a perfectionist and longs to escape from a career in luxury hotel management when her boss becomes too concerned with 'the bottom line'. She moves to a small town in rural Virginia and falls in love with an old Victorian house which she wants to convert to a high class B/B. Buying it raises some issues however, with misunderstandings and love not being the least! LOL
I'm definitely a fan of small town contemps. Woods's Chesapeake Shores series being my latest obsession. I might try 'Secrets of the Lost Summer' later on.
PS I already have the Kleypas book. *smile*
Q, Amazing Gracie is my favorite Woods book, and I recently read The Summer Garden, the last of her Chesapeake Bay books. It was lovely to see all the O'Briens and their HEAs. I'm also looking forward to a new Sweet Magnolias book from her soon.
I hope you do try Secrets of the Lost Summer. I think you'll like it.
I've only read Carla's romantic suspense, but "Secrets of the Lost Summer" seems like a straight romance. I guess setting is almost like another character. I do enjoy small town romances like Toni Blake's Destiny series, but I'm from the city and I love books city in NY and San Fran, too.
Jane, there is an element of mystery in SOTLS, but it's certainly different from romantic suspense.
I was a fan of small-town romances before the current explosion, But I admit that I'm weary of the sheer volume of them now, especially with the ones that are indistinguishable from one another. Knights Bridge seemed real to me in a way that not all small-town settings do. But I vote with you for variety. I'd like to see more city settings--N.Y., San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, and some smaller cities too. Authors don't have to choose big city or small town. People fall in love everywhere.
Jane, if you will send your contact info to me at jangarho at gmail dot com, I'll send you a copy of Lisa Kleypas's Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor.
Thanks, Janga. I already sent my info.
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