The Book of Summers

Escape to the picturesque Devon countryside and rural Hungary with Emylia Hall, the author of The Shell House Detectives, in this enchanting coming-of-age story. Real readers adore this Richard and Judy Book Club Pick: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'Beautifully evocative' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'In parts wildly exotic; in parts quietly wistful' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'Completely enthralled' Beth Lowe has been sent a parcel. Inside is a letter informing her that her long-estranged mother has died, and a scrapbook Beth has never seen before. Entitled The Book of Summers, it's stuffed with photographs and mementos complied by her mother to record the seven glorious childhood summers Beth spent in rural Hungary. It was a time when she trod the tightrope between separated parents and two very different countries; her bewitching but imperfect Hungarian mother and her gentle, reticent English father; the dazzling house of a Hungarian artist and an empty-feeling cottage in deepest Devon. And it was a time that came to the most brutal of ends the year Beth turned sixteen. Since then, Beth hasn't allowed herself to think about those years of her childhood. But the arrival of The Book of Summers brings the past tumbling back into the present; as vivid, painful and vital as ever. ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'I found myself sticking page markers all over the place so I could re-experience the most poetic bits, of which there are many' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'What a glorious read' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'A coming-of-age tale with a devastating twist; richly drawn characters bursting from the page and an utterly gripping plot - I was hooked from page one' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'I was swept up in the imagery of the Hungarian summers' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'Poignant and engaging'