book review: one more summer by Liz Flaherty
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One More Summer is available at Amazon.com.
A word to the pre-planners: you might want to make sure you’ve got a couple of happy reads lined up for after you finish this one.
This story is categorized or tagged as a Contemporary Romance. The slow-burn relationship between Dylan and Grace is the kind readers of true Contemporary Romance would probably like to cut out of the rest of the story and paste into its own novella so that when that book ended, the HEA would leave the reader feeling happy also. Dylan is a remarkable hero and so perfectly just the man Grace needs. Grace herself is loving and stubborn and caring and so perfectly just the woman Dylan needs.
But this book is better described as Romantic Women’s Fiction or a Family Drama, though not really the OTT kind. Plus, despite the couple’s happy ending, you probably won’t come away from it feeling happy. The ending is bittersweet, and yes, by turns, even sad—not because of any one event, but because of the way certain events throughout the story each leave their own residue and a wish that they had never happened to begin with.
I give this book five stars. Why? Because of the way in which the author has brought to life the characters in this book; the way she causes you to connect with their lives and to get caught up emotionally and almost inescapably in the events and activities, both large and small, that are parts of their lives. It is a story about Dylan and Grace’s love, but equally about family and friendship, weakness and strength, defeat and victory, imprisonment and freedom, and the sheer and raw reality of life. It makes you wonder how so much tragedy and conflict can exist in the microcosm of these characters, and yet, there is that part of you that knows it can exist there, and therein lies the clincher, the hook, the thing that causes you either to keep reading or to stop.
To add to all this, the writing is wonderfully visual and unencumbered and makes you feel like you are right there, in the hearts and minds of the people, wherever the story is taking place: in the kitchen, the yard, the hospital, the bedroom.
Fiction is written to create an escape for the reader, and you can’t help but escape into this story and at times, wish you could escape out of it. So be warned, as it is a story that compels you to finish it and does not easily release you.
Readers of fiction are fortunate to have a large variety of stories to choose from. Among that variety is the visceral angst that they sometimes seek, or dare I say, crave?
When you’re seeking—or craving—this angst in a love story of two damaged people you can’t help but pull for; in a love story inextricable woven into the defeats and triumphs of the people about whom they love and care—when you want to step far enough out of the usual expectations of a Contemporary Romance and to risk the linger heaviness of a not-quite happy ending, then what you’re seeking—or craving—is One More Summer.
Find more books by Liz on her Amazon page.
This story is categorized or tagged as a Contemporary Romance. The slow-burn relationship between Dylan and Grace is the kind readers of true Contemporary Romance would probably like to cut out of the rest of the story and paste into its own novella so that when that book ended, the HEA would leave the reader feeling happy also. Dylan is a remarkable hero and so perfectly just the man Grace needs. Grace herself is loving and stubborn and caring and so perfectly just the woman Dylan needs.
But this book is better described as Romantic Women’s Fiction or a Family Drama, though not really the OTT kind. Plus, despite the couple’s happy ending, you probably won’t come away from it feeling happy. The ending is bittersweet, and yes, by turns, even sad—not because of any one event, but because of the way certain events throughout the story each leave their own residue and a wish that they had never happened to begin with.
I give this book five stars. Why? Because of the way in which the author has brought to life the characters in this book; the way she causes you to connect with their lives and to get caught up emotionally and almost inescapably in the events and activities, both large and small, that are parts of their lives. It is a story about Dylan and Grace’s love, but equally about family and friendship, weakness and strength, defeat and victory, imprisonment and freedom, and the sheer and raw reality of life. It makes you wonder how so much tragedy and conflict can exist in the microcosm of these characters, and yet, there is that part of you that knows it can exist there, and therein lies the clincher, the hook, the thing that causes you either to keep reading or to stop.
To add to all this, the writing is wonderfully visual and unencumbered and makes you feel like you are right there, in the hearts and minds of the people, wherever the story is taking place: in the kitchen, the yard, the hospital, the bedroom.
Fiction is written to create an escape for the reader, and you can’t help but escape into this story and at times, wish you could escape out of it. So be warned, as it is a story that compels you to finish it and does not easily release you.
Readers of fiction are fortunate to have a large variety of stories to choose from. Among that variety is the visceral angst that they sometimes seek, or dare I say, crave?
When you’re seeking—or craving—this angst in a love story of two damaged people you can’t help but pull for; in a love story inextricable woven into the defeats and triumphs of the people about whom they love and care—when you want to step far enough out of the usual expectations of a Contemporary Romance and to risk the linger heaviness of a not-quite happy ending, then what you’re seeking—or craving—is One More Summer.
Find more books by Liz on her Amazon page.
