Summer’s End
Kathleen Gilles Seidel
Have you ever read a book that so captures you that you can’t put it down until you have read the last page and then wanted more of those characters? That is what happened to me when I read Kathleen “s book Summer’s End. This isn’t a book that I would normally pick up and read, but I am so glad that someone sent it to me as I think it may end up being in my top reads of 2011.
To their respective families, Jack Wells and Amy Legend are outsiders. A free-spirited man-of-all-trades who takes life as it comes, Jack is far different from both his mother, the ever-organized widow of an admiral, and his methodical lawyer sister. And Amy, a professional athlete with exquisite taste and golden beauty, has a glamorous career a world apart from her bookish older siblings and college professor father.
When Jack’s mother marries Amy’s widowed father, the newlyweds invite all the children to spend the summer at the Legends’ retreat in northern Minnesota. While their parents hoped they’d all like each other, they hadn’t counted on just how well Jack and Amy would get along. For affection unexpectedly flares into a burning attraction that threatens to destroy already fragile bonds. Caught between long-simmering conflicts and clashing personalities, Jack and Amy agree to deny their desire until the vacation is over. But it seems the more they resist, the deeper they find themselves falling in love. With passion this strong, how can they possibly wait ‘til Summer’s End.
The story of these two families coming together to make one family is an interesting mix, considering all the different personalities in the family. While the main focus is on Amy and Jack there is enough given to the other family members that you understand why Amy is the way she is.
Hal and Gwen are the parents that met and fell and in love after their spouses had died. Neither one is anything like the other’s previous spouse which is really nice. Hal has three kids Phoebe (who was closest to her mom), Ian (a college professor like his dad and married to a horrible woman), and Amy (the Olympic Athlete, and what she considered the Afterthought). None of the siblings are close, and Amy hasn’t been to the Lake in years.
Gwen has two children Holly (a dedicate career woman that loves her mom and her brother even though he annoys her with his ways), Jack (she has given up trying to figure out him out as he beats to his own drum), and then there is Nick (the grandson of her younger sister who gets dumped on her routinely because his mom and grandma are in a power play).
When you put all these people together with no modern technology and having to get to know each other and get along well it can be rather interesting.
As Amy and Jack discover who they are in this new family they also fall in love. What they never expected was for the family to care. What results is a love story that will unite a family and allow two people to love and accept the other one for who they really are.
If you are looking for a nice easy, feel good read than you absolutely can’t go wrong with this book.
Grade A
It seems like a really nice read. Your review convinced me! I’m going to give it a try soon. Thank you!
No this certainly is not a book I would be picking up. It sounds to much like a drama, or real life story.
Aurian, that is what I thought too, but the way it was written it doesn’t feel like a drama..