Happy Christmas everyone! I hope you’re having (or have had depending on when you’re reading this!) a fabulous day and that Santa left you plenty of books in your stocking/pillowcase/under the tree. A lot of my reading last week cropped up in my Christmas reading post, which ruled it out for here, and several of the other books onthe list would have been repeats, so you’ve ended up with a totally seasonally inappropriate book of the week – Summer at Willow Lake. I’m only a little bit sorry about it though, because this was a lot of fun and I know there’ll be people out there with Christmas-overload at the moment. But if you do want something more seasonally appropriate, check out my Christmas Day post from last year about Magnificent Meals.
Anyway, Summer at Willow Lake is the first in the Lakeshore Chronicles series, and I read it last week because I like to read series in order and the next book in the series looked wintry/Christmassy. As I said, I was reading for the Christmas post last week. And yes, I know, I was super behind, I need to be better organised and plan ahead more. But in my defence, I plead the trip to Washington. After all I’m not going to be able to use that as an excuse for very much longer so I might as well make the most of it while I can!
Olivia Bellamy is spending the summer renovating her family’s old summer camp. Camp Kioga’s been closed for a decade, but her grandparents are determined to mark their Golden Wedding by renewing their vows at the spot they originally got married and as a “house fluffer” Olivia is the obvious choice to help make that happen. Olivia is happy to have the excuse to get out of Manhattan, where the relationship that she thought was heading for the altar has unexpecctedly crumbled, although Kioga wouldn’t be her first choice. She was very much the ugly duckling at school and her memories of camp are not the best. Connor is the local contractor who is going to help make her vision a reality. The trouble is, he’s also the boy that she had a huge crush on at camp. From his point of view, he’s not keen on spending a summer renovating the camp where he spent his time as a scholarship camper as his alcoholic father was on the staff. He doesn’t recognise Olivia at first, but soon the sparks are flying once again. But can they put the past behind them?
That’s the main plot line, but there is a large cast of characters alongside Olivia and Connor who get quite meaty storylines of their own which (I hope/presume) set up the next books in the series. It’s got a slightly saga-y feel if sagas were set in upstate New York. There are big extended families with secrets and rivalries and dramas. It’s all very enjoyable. And if you grew up reading American middle grade novels about children being send off to summer camp, it’s a lot of fun to get a grown up summer camp novel!
As I said at the top, this is in no way seasonally appropriate, but I don’t care – especially as it’s only 99p on Kindle and Kobo at the moment which is a total bargain for nearly 400 pages of summer romance and angst. Even if you don’t fancy reading it now, it might well be worth picking up for that moment at the end of spring when you just want to read about long hot summers. This is also the last Book of the Week post of 2018 – which means that my end of year roundup posts are on their way to you in the next week. And the good news is, that I’m much more up to speed with them than I have been with my Christmas reading…
Happy Reading and Merry Christmas!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 