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Summer of Love
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Product Description
Book Description
The wonderful new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of A Perfect Proposal.
Product Description
Sian Bishop has only ever experienced one moment of recklessness - a moment that resulted in her beloved son Rory. It's not that she doesn't love the outcome of that wild night, but since then she has always taken the safer route. So when dependable, devoted Richard suggests a move to the beautiful English countryside, she leaves the hustle and bustle of the city behind, and she throws herself into the picture-postcard cottage garden, her furniture restoration business, and a new life in the country.
Her good intentions are torpedoed on a glorious summer's evening with the arrival of Gus Berresford. One-time explorer and full-time heartbreaker, Gus is ridiculously exciting, wonderfully glamorous and a completely inappropriate love interest for a single mum. But Gus and Sian have met before...
Sian has no use for a fling, she simply mustn't fall in love with the most unlikely suitor ever to cross her path - even if he has now crossed her path twice. But who knows what can happen in a summer of love...
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Like the overwhelming majority of the other reviewers, I really enjoyed this romantic novel. Katie Fforde's world is very kind - both her heroines are people I could imagine meeting and liking and the heroes Katie finds for them are just right. You can trust her as a writer to keep you interested and to make you smile, but not to shock or upset you, and I find her invaluable comfort reading when life (as it is for so many people) is stressful. Any person who likes romantic novels will like this and recognise all the essential components.
But I think there is another quality in Katie's fiction which is overlooked- how radical she is. Her heroines are normal women, and because Katie writes Romantic fiction with happy endings and no postmodern experimentation or disturbing twists, it is easy to overlook how unusual that is! I just love the way she writes about Fiona in particular - she manages to give us a lovely heroine who is a realistic middle aged woman, who suffers from indigestion, sees the funny side of life, does the church flowers , loves her son and grandson and has to buy new underwear before going on a date BUT who has a believably sexy time with a gorgeous middle aged man. Hooray! Thank you Katie! Katie's depiction of Sian, the younger woman, is equally skilled - Sian is someone you could imagine meeting on the school playground waiting to pick up her son. She is a kind, hard working single mother (another busted stereotype!) who loves her child, gets on well with her parents, has believably close and unbitchy friendships with other young mothers and with Fiona, and when confronted with a rich admirer has the principles not to choose money over love. The idea that the passion of a one night stand can be satisfyingly reignited after an unplanned pregnancy and 6 years apart is definitely of the genre, but because Sian is so believable and sympathetic this works.
Katie is great at characters. Sian's little boy, Rory, is beautifully and lovingly depicted. Even walk on parts - like the pie making woman in the bookshop - are fun and realistic.
I loved the subplots, particularly Fiona's internet dating disasters, which made me laugh. I will never look at garden centres in the same way again and the safety reminder may well help many a reader! Gus's bushcraft knowledge was really well conveyed - having gone on a children's bushcraft course I recognised all the techniques he used, but admired the skilful way Katie managed to describe them without sounding like an instruction novel.
In a quiet way, Katie Fforde is doing gloriously subversive work for middle aged women - giving likeable normal women who struggle with their weight and worry about their families passionate sexuality and fun! Thank you so much Katie. I think that, with 'Going Dutch', this is my favourite of your books. Please repeat this subversive recipe and have more middle aged heroines in the future!
But I think there is another quality in Katie's fiction which is overlooked- how radical she is. Her heroines are normal women, and because Katie writes Romantic fiction with happy endings and no postmodern experimentation or disturbing twists, it is easy to overlook how unusual that is! I just love the way she writes about Fiona in particular - she manages to give us a lovely heroine who is a realistic middle aged woman, who suffers from indigestion, sees the funny side of life, does the church flowers , loves her son and grandson and has to buy new underwear before going on a date BUT who has a believably sexy time with a gorgeous middle aged man. Hooray! Thank you Katie! Katie's depiction of Sian, the younger woman, is equally skilled - Sian is someone you could imagine meeting on the school playground waiting to pick up her son. She is a kind, hard working single mother (another busted stereotype!) who loves her child, gets on well with her parents, has believably close and unbitchy friendships with other young mothers and with Fiona, and when confronted with a rich admirer has the principles not to choose money over love. The idea that the passion of a one night stand can be satisfyingly reignited after an unplanned pregnancy and 6 years apart is definitely of the genre, but because Sian is so believable and sympathetic this works.
Katie is great at characters. Sian's little boy, Rory, is beautifully and lovingly depicted. Even walk on parts - like the pie making woman in the bookshop - are fun and realistic.
I loved the subplots, particularly Fiona's internet dating disasters, which made me laugh. I will never look at garden centres in the same way again and the safety reminder may well help many a reader! Gus's bushcraft knowledge was really well conveyed - having gone on a children's bushcraft course I recognised all the techniques he used, but admired the skilful way Katie managed to describe them without sounding like an instruction novel.
In a quiet way, Katie Fforde is doing gloriously subversive work for middle aged women - giving likeable normal women who struggle with their weight and worry about their families passionate sexuality and fun! Thank you so much Katie. I think that, with 'Going Dutch', this is my favourite of your books. Please repeat this subversive recipe and have more middle aged heroines in the future!
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
If, like me, you have ever had to grind your way through seriously recalcitrant illness - or a wet bank holiday, or flu! - then you're going be so glad you found Katie Fforde. Not just because she's fun, and funny (two very different things, in lesser hands), but because she is all about the best things in life - kind people, calming places, hopes and ambitions, and the spirit to try, against comic, often mortifying odds, to find the place you belong. Her heroines are ordinary women, with ordinary problems, who - thanks to Katie's good-hearted mucking up of their plans - find themselves mired in the kind of gentle chaos that is the hallmark of her books.
Declaring an interest here - Katie is someone I know. So the great pleasure is seeing Katie herself coming through, loud and clear, so her readers can enjoy her too. Her stories are comforting and cheering - and occasionally make me spit coffee all over the cat on my lap, I'm laughing so much. Which wouldn't matter, except that the cat is not my own.
A couple of reviews have criticised the middle-class manners and milieu of the books, and their 'dated' (aka posh and/or grannie-aged person's language). Which is fair and free comment...so long as the argument is not that these things are in some way excluding, snobbish or unreal. The last things Katie's work could ever be. Her world exists; it's just different from Martina Cole's world, or Sophie Kinsella's. But so what? Isn't the point of books that they take you anywhere your imagination wants to go? I'm so glad 'Summer of Love' has a middle-aged character, making an idiot of herself with such self-awareness, such lack of sensible planning, and such return-to-adolescence glee. I believed in the close relationship of Sian & Fiona, too, most of all because, when it came to the heart of the matter - Sian's connection to Gus - they behaved like grown-ups (a bit of a shock to someone like me, addicted to Eastenders and crime novels!). This is a lovely warm hug of a book, and - against really tough odds - it lifted me up. I just hope Katie carries on being Katie - it's what she does best, and why her fans (and her friends) are so very happy she exists.
Declaring an interest here - Katie is someone I know. So the great pleasure is seeing Katie herself coming through, loud and clear, so her readers can enjoy her too. Her stories are comforting and cheering - and occasionally make me spit coffee all over the cat on my lap, I'm laughing so much. Which wouldn't matter, except that the cat is not my own.
A couple of reviews have criticised the middle-class manners and milieu of the books, and their 'dated' (aka posh and/or grannie-aged person's language). Which is fair and free comment...so long as the argument is not that these things are in some way excluding, snobbish or unreal. The last things Katie's work could ever be. Her world exists; it's just different from Martina Cole's world, or Sophie Kinsella's. But so what? Isn't the point of books that they take you anywhere your imagination wants to go? I'm so glad 'Summer of Love' has a middle-aged character, making an idiot of herself with such self-awareness, such lack of sensible planning, and such return-to-adolescence glee. I believed in the close relationship of Sian & Fiona, too, most of all because, when it came to the heart of the matter - Sian's connection to Gus - they behaved like grown-ups (a bit of a shock to someone like me, addicted to Eastenders and crime novels!). This is a lovely warm hug of a book, and - against really tough odds - it lifted me up. I just hope Katie carries on being Katie - it's what she does best, and why her fans (and her friends) are so very happy she exists.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Sian is a single mum who has moved to the countryside to get away from harsh city life, and to carry on with her furniture decorating business. She has a son, aged nearly five, and is a lovely little boy who likes dinosaurs and fire engines. Sian makes a friend in Fiona, who lives in the big house next door, and towards the end of a dinner party hosted by Fiona, her son Angus, or Gus as Sian had known him, turns up and a situation follows.
I like Sian because Katie Fforde hasn't made her with problems or issues, she just fell hard in lust with a man one night and has never got over it. She just gets on with life, and with support from friends and family, brings up her son as a lone parent family. Fiona isn't the usual middle-aged, interfering busybody you read of in other books, she loves children and is kind and generous. I liked them both immensely. Gus is an adventurer, a practical man who loves the outdoors. I liked him too.
Now for the negatives. Sian's friend helped her move to the village where his sister has a childcare business and Sian and Gus had met at the same friend's party, so why was it surprising that Gus and Sian would at one time meet again? Also, if Gus had been away for five years, surely he would have had an internet based email account to stay in touch with his mother, so why couldn't Sian have contacted him wherever he was. A little bit was said about Gus's injured leg, and a tiny bit about his dyslexia, but these weren't properly explored.
Fiona offered to let Sian use her barn to work in, and then Gus used the barn to keep his exploring stuff there. There could have been more opportunity for conversation there.
There is the usual old female friend who may or may not have got her claws in the male lead, I saw right through this and didn't think it held water. Sian anxiety over this friendship was rather pointless. Also Gus didn't tell Sian what he was up to at his mother's house, and this was meant to feed Sian's insecurities. Boring! A practical man like Gus would have been honest and up front.
The language was a bit wrong for me too. When Sian and Gus are discussing their future whilst at a park in London, Gus calls her a minx, which seems wrong. Gus talks very matey to Rory, his son, then uses more posh language to Sian. Perhaps, not coming from a middle-class background, I am finding the dialogue a bit dated, do people still speak in this manner?
Overall, despite the niggles, I read it twice and I enjoyed it, but it could have been improved in some places.
I like Sian because Katie Fforde hasn't made her with problems or issues, she just fell hard in lust with a man one night and has never got over it. She just gets on with life, and with support from friends and family, brings up her son as a lone parent family. Fiona isn't the usual middle-aged, interfering busybody you read of in other books, she loves children and is kind and generous. I liked them both immensely. Gus is an adventurer, a practical man who loves the outdoors. I liked him too.
Now for the negatives. Sian's friend helped her move to the village where his sister has a childcare business and Sian and Gus had met at the same friend's party, so why was it surprising that Gus and Sian would at one time meet again? Also, if Gus had been away for five years, surely he would have had an internet based email account to stay in touch with his mother, so why couldn't Sian have contacted him wherever he was. A little bit was said about Gus's injured leg, and a tiny bit about his dyslexia, but these weren't properly explored.
Fiona offered to let Sian use her barn to work in, and then Gus used the barn to keep his exploring stuff there. There could have been more opportunity for conversation there.
There is the usual old female friend who may or may not have got her claws in the male lead, I saw right through this and didn't think it held water. Sian anxiety over this friendship was rather pointless. Also Gus didn't tell Sian what he was up to at his mother's house, and this was meant to feed Sian's insecurities. Boring! A practical man like Gus would have been honest and up front.
The language was a bit wrong for me too. When Sian and Gus are discussing their future whilst at a park in London, Gus calls her a minx, which seems wrong. Gus talks very matey to Rory, his son, then uses more posh language to Sian. Perhaps, not coming from a middle-class background, I am finding the dialogue a bit dated, do people still speak in this manner?
Overall, despite the niggles, I read it twice and I enjoyed it, but it could have been improved in some places.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great read
Highly recommend this book. Once I'd started it I couldn't put it down... Really want to read some others now.
Published 14 days ago by NatA
Heart-Warming!
I had previously read and enjoyed Living Dangerously by Katie Fforde and I was keen to read more of her books, so here we are. Read more
Published 17 days ago by Me, My Books and I
Would the real Katie Fforde step forward, please?
I've been a fan of Katie Fforde for ages and would always eagerly await her new book, but I'm sorry Summer of Love is the last one I will be buying. Read more
Published 26 days ago by Mrs. J. L. Howard
An easy read about real people
Quite a mix of negative and positive reviews here, but on the whole I agree with the positives. `Normal' and `ordinary' are not usually big-seller words to describe characters, but... Read more
Published 1 month ago by BondiBookgirl
Excellent Read
This book I bought for my wife and she tells me it has good characters and story line.
My wife found it a very enjoyable read.
Recommend.
Tel
Coventry
My wife found it a very enjoyable read.
Recommend.
Tel
Coventry
Published 1 month ago by Tel
sweet tale
i have to say that this is the best book iv read so far this year ..i loved it a nice sweet easy read which i thought had a very entertaining storyline, as said by other... Read more
Published 2 months ago by ALEX2007
Couldn't put it down
My wife was impatient for this book and couldn't wait to get her hands on it! She enjoyed every page.
Published 2 months ago by Ken Woods
SUMMER OF LOVE
AN ENJOYABLE READ FOLLOWING A VERY SIMILAR FORMAT TO ALL THE OTHER STORIES WRITTEN BY THIS AUTHOR. LIGHT, EASY READING.
Published 2 months ago by SKILLS
Ideal cosy Sunday read
Plot
Sian had been raising her son Rory who is nearly 5 years old on her own after a one night stand, in the hustle and bustle of London. Read more
Sian had been raising her son Rory who is nearly 5 years old on her own after a one night stand, in the hustle and bustle of London. Read more
Published 3 months ago by reabeauty
Enjoyable, predictable easy read
I have been a massive fan of Katie Fforde book for years. I remember buying the first one in a charity shop and that was it; I needed to get them all. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mette Kristiansen
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