One Perfect Summer - by Brenda Novak: Book Review

Title: One Perfect Summer
Author: Brenda Novak
Pages: 400
Publisher: Harlequin - Mira
Release Date: 7th May 2020
Genre: Women's Fiction
Format: Kindle


Good Reads Synopsis

Some families we’re born into
Some we find for ourselves

When Serenity Alston swabbed her cheek for 23andMe, she joked about uncovering some dark ancestral scandal. The last thing she expected was to discover two half sisters she didn’t know existed. Suddenly, everything about her loving family is drawn into question. And meeting these newfound sisters might be the only way to get answers.

The women decide to dig into the mystery together at Serenity’s family cabin in Lake Tahoe. With Reagan navigating romantic politics at work and Lorelei staring down the collapse of her marriage, all three women are converging at a crossroads in their lives. Before the summer is over, they’ll have to confront the past and determine how to move forward when everything they previously thought to be true was a lie. But any future is easier to face with family by your side.

My Review of One Perfect Summer

It has an interesting premise, and the story leaned heavily on the sisters' mysterious beginning. I loved how we learned about each of the sisters gradually, but towards the end extra pieces of information were added almost as a second thought, as if the author forgot to mention them earlier. As for the resolution to the mystery of the sisters' connection, only in the literally last 5% of the novel do we find out how they are related, and even that as a rushed, almost thrown in solution.

The ending, yes, is unexpected and I wouldn't have guessed it, but maybe less build-up, and more telling how they coped with what they found out. There was a lot, and I mean, a lot of information thrown in my face in the last few pages, coming from an unexpected source, and I needed time to process it all, but alas! I had no time because the novel ended. Funny enough, one of the characters is an author and she says at some point that the ending always goes faster than the beginning. This applies to this novel as well, because by the 90% mark it seemed the author was ready to wrap up this novel. That must have been a bit tricky because it touched up on a lot of heavy topics, some put there as if to cover all mandatory points in a novel. Hence the unbelievable ending.

I knew I was reading a women's story when all the men were described as good looking, the perfect height so their female love interst could rest their pretty head on their broad chest (I'm paraphrasing here). Speaking of love interests, I am glad not all three sisters ended up in a perfectly tied romantic relationship; this keeps things more reality-grounded. There are the expected cliches in a novel in this genre, but in times of global pandemics, I knew this was what I wanted, so no judging here.

Overall it's an engaging story, albeit a tad too many characters. I think we could have done without all three brothers next door, and maybe the novel as a whole could have been about 50 pages shorter. It's a light novel, with some depth; in a word, a feel-good novel.

I received a free e-book copy of this novel from the publisher via Net Galley. All thoughts expressed here are my own.

List of characters for One Perfect Summer (contains spoilers!) 

Serenity {S.} Alston - 35 years old, true crime writer

Sean Alston - ex-husband, in prison because of child pornography

Sawyer - Sean's step-brother, was in the military. Becomes romantically involved with Serenity

Beau - S's 25 y/o brother. gay, will marry Trevor

Tara and Tia - S's twin sisters, 28 y/o, live in San Antonio

Chuck and Charlotte Currington - S's parents

Uncle Vance - Chuck's brother. Has worked at an adoption agency many years before

Chuck is the one to give S a newspaper clipping that'll uncover the mystery

S. spends the summer with R. and L. at her parents' cabin near Lake Tahoe

Lorelei {L.} Cipriano - knows nothing about her biological parents, was in foster care all her life

Osha and Mercedes - in foster care with L, they keep in touch

Mark - Lorelei's husband. Has an affair with Francine

Francine - Lorelei's best sister. pregnant with Mark's child

Allen - Francine's ex-husband, have been separated for 6 months

Lucy - Mark and Lorelei's 4 y/o daughter

Reagan {R.} Sands - creative director in New York at Edison & Curry

Rosalind - R's mother, a fashion designer

Stuart Sands - R's father, died when she was 2 y/o

Rally McKnight - architect, becomes romantically involved with R.. He has a teenaged son. Rally has owned an architecture company for 20 years. He's divorced, in his 40s.

Drew - work colleague of R's. Have a one time affair, she becomes pregnant. She keeps the child, a girl, he gives up his paternal rights

Sally - Drew's wife. They have 3 kids together

Finley {Finn} Hatch - neighbour at the cabin. becomes romantically involved with Lorelei

Nolan - Finn's brother

Davis - Finn's brother, has lost an arm in a motorcycle accident

Michelle - Finn's on and off girlfriend

The girls are connected though their father who was a priest and had relations with underage girls. All three girls were adopted.

L's parents divorced after she was adopted, but her mother was killed soon after, that's how L was never claimed by anyone and ended up in foster care.

The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt - by Andrea Bobotis: Book Review

Title: The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt
Author: Andrea Bobotis
Pages: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Release Date: July 9th 2019
Genre: Historical Fiction
Format: Kindle

What power things had over me! 

As I look back, I wonder what made our house a home for me. Was it my family? Or was it the things in their proper place?

Judith Kratt, the oldest child of the Kratt family which used to be the richest and most feared family in Bound, South Carolina in the 1920s, decides to do an inventory of all the things her family has gathered over the years. Her love for them is deeply ingrained. Oh, the things we learn due to this inventory!

This is a slow burn story, but it consumes you and you keep kindling the flame because you are now part of the Kratts and part of Bound, South Carolina.

Compiling an inventory of a house, like Miss Judith Kratt intends to do, takes time - and so does telling the story of a family through the objects. You need to be in a certain mind frame, so to say, to read this novel. Yes, there is racism, but keep in mind it's the years 1929 and 1989. Yes, there are few, if any, likeable characters, but this makes them all the more intriguing. Yes, it may seem to drag, but bit by bit the tapestry of a whole family and town is revealed through the power of objects. It's the typical Southern family story: the father acting like the leader who instills fear in all, the meek mother who mostly keeps to herself, but still has a confidante, and the children who seem to grow without any of the parents' attention.

I enjoyed this novel very much. Actually, I find it hard to come up with something I didn't like about it. Maybe I could say that it did seem to have a slow pace, and the "mystery" surrounding some characters was too thin, therefore Rosemarie's shock, Miss Judith's youngest sister, is hardly believable. By the half point, through all the flashbacks and the shared memories, the reader can easily see where the story is going and figure out the secret.

The novel has 14 chapters that tell the story of the Kratt family, the richest and most important family in Bound, a small town in South Carolina. The narrative line alternates between 1929 and 1989. The memories, the stories, and the history of the objects that come into focus reveal the underlying parts of each family member. I have realised this is a favourite way for me to discover the story of a person, family or town. It's like an onion: you find more and more stories. At times, apparently without realising it, the narrator gives pieces of information and gradually you piece them all together so that in the end you have the whole Kratt puzzle figured out. It's helpful that although the story alternates past-present day, it keeps an approximate chronological timeline in revealing the family history.

As far as the characters go, there isn't anyone I liked. They just are, but this makes them human and you accept them for who they are. Miss Judith, who we learn has never left her house in the last sixty years, has all the traits to make her irritating, but you can hardly keep anything against her. Rosemarie tried to cope with what she thought she understood as she saw fit. Olva was caught between two worlds and two families, not fully knowing on whose side she ought to stand.

As for the writing, it's poetic at times, simplistic other times. There were some sentences lacking a verb, and although I think I understand the aesthetic purpose, it's bothersome when reading. In this sense, it would have flowed better if there were some semicolons or an alternative writing structure or style.

All in all, I had a good time reading this novel. It's for those who like stories set in the South, especially since it reminds so well of the American Southern classics and the time period usually tackled in those novels. Not to mention, it's perfect for a slow afternoon when the heat is almost unbearable and you lay in the shadow drinking iced tea.

3 1/2 *

 

I received a free e-book copy of this novel from the publisher via Net Galley. All thoughts expressed here are my own.

 ***

Characters List (contains spoilers!):

Bound, South Carolina

Daddy Brayburn Kratt - richest man in town, owns a department store and cotton gins

Mama Rosemarie Kratt - Daddy's wife. quiet person. died of a hear attack. lived with

Judith Kratt - the oldest child. takes the blame for Olva.

Quincy Kratt - the boy. killed by Olva on December 20th 1929.

Rosemarie Kratt - the youngest child. very beautiful. thinks Judith killed Quincy because she saw her with the gun after she took it from Olva. left Bound immediately after. did not return for 60 years. Helped Olva learn about her father's family. left as soon as she learned the truth.

Aunt Dee - unmarried, Mama's sister. She knows about Mama and Charlie. died of a heart attck

Charlie - a handyman. works at the store

Charlie + Mama = Olva, a child born a year before Judith

Shep Bramlett - Daddy Kratt's business partern. will eventually buy Daddy out and will lead to Daddy's downfall. Shep sexually attacked Rosemarie when she was 13 years old.

Byrd Parker - Daddy Kratt's business rival

Byrd's wife committed suicide. She had had an affair with a Negro man and she was pregnant.

Mr. and Mrs. Greenley - the butcher and his wife

Mr. Burn - the milliner

Ima - the Kratt's cook

Marcus - paperman. related to Olva, but we only learn this later on

Amaryllis - Marcus' daughter

Dovey Aikens - girl Quincy loved. they two had a child, but we learn nothing about it

the five Sullivan daughters - poor. had many children

Jolly and Vi - Shep's daughters

Rick - Jolly's son. he owns a store, a small and unprofitable version of the store his grandfather bought from Daddy Kratt. Shep had no business sense and the store soon lost its glory.