5 January 2015

Review #118: In the Summer Time by Judy Astley



My rating: 4 of 5 stars




While reading In the Summer Time by Judy Astley, my mind was crooning Kesha's one of the most heart-breaking songs:













 But old flames can't hold a candle to you
Sometimes at night, I think of old lovers I've known
I remember how holding them helped me not feel so alone
Then I feel you beside me and even their memories are gone
Like stars in the night lost in the sweet light of dawn
Old flames can't hold a candle to you
No one can light up the night like you do
Flickering embers of love
I've known one or two
But old flames can't hold a candle to you
Old flames can't hold a candle to you 



Judy Astley, an English writer, deeply moved my heart with her funny and touching novel, In the Summer Time which happens to be the sequel to her book, Just For The Summer . But, In the Summer Time could be read as a standalone book.

Synopsis:
It’s twenty years since Miranda, then sixteen, holidayed in Cornwall and her life changed forever. Now she’s back again – with her mother Clare and the ashes of her stepfather Jack, whose wish was to be scattered on the sea overlooked by their one-time holiday home.
The picturesque cove seems just the same as ever, but the people are different – more smart incomers,fewer locals, more luxury yachts in the harbor. But Miranda and Clare both find some strangely familiar faces, and revisit the emotions they both thought had disappeared.


Clare, Miranda, Jess, Silva- all these four primary female characters in Astley's book are equally funny, charming, witty and sweet and moreover, they can be easily related with the every day characters. Clare, Miranda's mother along with Miranda's daughter Silva and her son, Bo took a summer trip to their beach house at Cornwall, where Miranda and her mom, Clare, visited twenty years ago when Miranda was a sixteen years old teenager. But on this very trip, all their past memories come flooding back to them and some unclosed chapters of their life open one more time, from old flame to past grievances to lost dreams to past regrets, etc every thing come back and wrap them up with the warmth and fill their heart with that restless feeling.

The characters are undoubtedly very realistic and it seems that the author have drawn inspiration from her every day characters. Moreover, the way she represented them is quite striking enough for us to agree with their complicated situations. This is a love-story of three generations from grand-ma's past fling to the mother's summer fling to the daughter's present summer affair- all happens on their trip to Cornwall. Moreover, she differentiated the feelings of all three women vividly and we can completely relate to their emotional turmoil separately. But there were few characters that were pretty useless according to me, like Harriet/Pablo break-up and the whole WAG thing! It is a sweet cheesy love-story, and any romance novel readers will love it, but it is not a perfect beach read, since most of the time, the author focused on the budding relationships instead of the beach life. We got to see the beach life through Lola, Jess's daughter, Silva and Bo's eyes and how a teenager embraces their beach-holiday.

The storyline is not that engaging enough to draw us into the story. Once again, the author focused more on the relationship drama rather than showing us a carefree beach life. But what I liked the most was the author's style of writing which is absolutely fine, smooth and the narration is also kind of catchy. My favorite character will be Miranda's daughter, Silva. I liked how the author flawless wrote about her emotional issues from developing a crush to image issues to all those petty teenage girly stuffs- I can relate to almost all the issues faced by Silva. She might be shy and bit naive and too confused in her head but she also knew what she wanted, and I really liked how Miranda used to treat her daughter- like an adult! Also the author enlightens us good house-keeping and the advantages of having a clean home through her story.

Verdict: A nice, romantic and sweet summer read!

Courtesy: Thanks to the author, Judy Astley, for giving me an opportunity to read and review her novel. 
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Author Info:
Judy Astley started writing in 1990 following several years of working as a dressmaker, illustrator, painter and parent. Her sixteen novels, the most recent of which are Laying The Ghost and Other People¹s Husbands, are all published by Transworld/Black Swan. Judy¹s specialist areas, based on many years of hectic personal experience, are domestic disharmony and family chaos with a good mix of love-and-passion and plenty of humor thrown in. Judy has been a regular columnist on magazines and enjoys writing journalism pieces on just about any subject, usually from a fun viewpoint. She lives in London and Cornwall, loves plants, books, hot sunshine and rock music (all at once, preferably) and would happily claim that listening in to other people¹s conversations is both a top hobby and an absolute career-necessity
Visit her here 

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