While I am not someone who is particularly seeking adventure and longing to live on the wild side, I'm afraid my own life story would frighten the main character to a dead faint on the spot. That is as plain true a description can be made for a novel in desperately desirous need of a little spice and sizzle. This unnapealing and even toned dud is so unwelcomed in it's old-fashioned attitude, so noticeably out of date, that is it tooth grinding to get through. In all it's faults, perhaps worse off is how the author completely fails in both capturing the essence of humanity and a timeless, lasting appeal.

I even found the book's description to be so frivolous in it's worries, (is that really all there is to this simple book?), so much that it comes across as really funny, which certainly wasn't the author's intent. No, that couldn't be true because in fact even though the book has little humor, the main character's sense of fun is worse being so commonly plain throughout, that one has to think and then upon comprehension, a first response is to dismiss it quickly having found it horribly anti-social. A good recommendation really is that one could and should in fact read a screenplay to the 'Waltons' before picking up this tiresome, out of touch, babbling and boring story which is comparable only to an old ladies' private medical journal. The questions that I ask are, how did author Miss Read get this ratty thing published? And has the world really changed this much in only 15 years, since the time of it's publishing?

I will say that Miss Read has a nice vocabulary which she incorporates flowingly into her writing style, and so the vocabulary is its saving grace, yet good writing is to be expected from an adult novel. Without that between the lines, I imagine the plot would be so utterly simple and contain character dialogue so grittingly uninteresting, that it would have no distinction from a girl's young adult oh-so-pleasant fictional published in the 1950's era.

All in all, the strong points make this book a worthwhile read, yet it still purrs one 'P' too many in pppppleasant to consider it a good, substantial read. Expect it to be found only in flea markets or antique shops come 10-15 years down the road.

I highly recommend Miss Read books to everyone who enjoys reading stories about small towns with characters who have English wit and humor. It is wonderful that these books are being reprinted.

This particular year in the English village of Fairacre has seen a cold snowy winter. On the first day of spring, the grounds are still filled with snow. Custodial worker Mrs. Pringle is not just her usual sourpuss self. She claims her leg has not flared up as it has on numerous occasions due to the mistakes of the schoolmistress Miss Read. This time Miss Read learns that Mrs. Pringle's niece with the low IQ caused the noticeable limp. However, unlike the many "bad leg" moments in the past, to the schoolmistress' shock, Mrs. Pringle quits.

Everyone looks forward to the warmth of summer. For the school employees including Miss Read and most villagers, the highlight of the summer is the wedding of teacher Miss Briggs. As Spring slowly turns to Summer and the wedding nears, Miss Read's friend Amy begins to act strange and ultimately vanishes. Miss Read wonders if Amy is okay, what else will happen before school starts anew, and who will become the new custodian?

SUMMER AT FAIRACRE is a leisurely cozy look at a small English village. The story line is fun for those readers who want to kick back and follow a relaxing tale filled with friendly charcaters (and one not so friendly individual). Anyone who wants to observe life in a small village during the latter half of the twentieth century, this novel and the entire series provides an unhurried but insightful look.

Harriet Klausner

God's Long Summer covers a very exciting and troubled time in American History. The various points of view Marsh used to complete this book is the key to understanding this time period. However, the unnecessary abundance of religious references and the slow pace of the book make it almost unreadable. It is heartbreaking to read through one uninteresting point of view, to discover the next chapter is just as dull.

Highly recommended account of the role of "faith" in the lives of five prominent figures in Mississippi during the civil rights movement. Saints (Fannie Lou Hamer, Edwin King, Cleveland Sellers) and sinners (Sam Bowers and Douglas Hudgins) are both represented. Hudgins and other Jackson elites come off nearly as loathsome as Bowers. Marsh's prose is brilliant, providing for a lively and inspiring read.

Marsh's book is a truly poignant view of real Southern people during the civil rights movement. He is able to capture each of the five individual's quite different understandings of God and His actual place in their lives during this time of great struggle. Marsh takes you on a journey of different Christian imaginations as he examines the beliefs of an outstanding woman fighting for her rights as a black woman, an ex-headmaster of the Ku Klux Klan, a black militant leader, a middle-of-the-road preacher, and a white minister who managed to "cross-over" racial lines and fight for freedom. These are wonderful and heartfelt stories being presented by Marsh, and must be read by anyone who has lived through the time of the civil rights movement.

"Last Summer at Barebones" is a perfect Summer book. I enjoyed the story and was rooting for Dee.
I do agree that the ending kind of stunk. It seemed too rushed. Other than that, great book.

This book takes you right back to the 60's and 70's as quick as a time machine. But it's hard to read at times, because it's so gruellingly honest. Fortunately it's also extremely funny. The ending is a double whammy. Just when you think it's over she hits you again, in a different way. It's a really important book to read, especially for anyone who still feels bad because they were or are picked on for being fat. I couldn't put it down!

Barebones (to me anyway) was about family -- how family members fit and relate, their perceptions of each other, their misperceptions about themselves. It's also a great growing up story. Characters were individuals with foibles and eccentricities. Mason made them lively and interesting (and sometimes silly) but even while she was poking fun at them, you could feel that she cared about them and respected them -- that's a neat trick.

And I had no problem with the ending -- it was plausible and it fit the characters.

This book was an easy read with characters that were very realistic. It did, however, seem to lack something and I really could never get excited to turn the pages. I was ready for the book to end and was a bit let down with the abrupt ending. It was like, "what happened?" '

A realistic story, charming and enjoyable light reading, but lacking something. I was quite disappointed.

Robinson is a fine writer, with a spare, edgy style, and tells a good story. Two sisters and their husbands, lovers, and children share the rental of a Maine beach cottage and get to know each other better...or worse. The main character, an aimless, about-to-be-divorced photographer with a small son, lives with and off her lover, a tense and unlikable lawyer. Her sister married the man she saw ---and fell in love with first--- when she was a teenager. The sisters' relationship is strained (do they really know each other?), but the end of the summer offers hope for a new understanding. The sister's husband is affable, but the main character's lover is problematic. He wants to marry her, and she seems to come around to accepting, but can it be anything but a mistake? Open-ended, almost-tragic climax resolves little of the tensions between the protagonists, though, and leaves the reader hanging and wondering what's next.

I've enjoyed some of T. Jefferson Parker's work, but he's always stretched the limits of credibility in his plotting. This one is more than a bit too much. Stay away unless you're truly desperate for a T. Jefferson Parker/Orange County fix.

Summer of Fear may not be the most carefully plotted suspense tale I've ever read, but I was riveted by the unblinking focus he placed on raw, difficult emotions. I've never before experienced a writer who more accurately portrayed the inner life of someone watching a loved one suffer a debilitating illness. When people rank a piece of fiction as "for adults only," we usually mean it contains sex and/or violence. This novel has both, but I would keep it away from children because the strong, ambivalent feelings of a tortured spouse are for grown-ups only. I'm a mystery and suspense fan, and I recognize the plot weaknesses in Summer of Fear, but I would recommend this novel to anyone who appreciates well-drawn characters. But be prepared to look at real life in all its conflicted, ugly, transcendent, messy glory.

I have read almost of all of T. Jefferson Parkers book, and he is
one of the best authors around.
THIS book was my favorite however, because there are two stories going on at once and they are both fascinating.
The first is a crime writer who's wife if dying, literally wasting away in front of him, and the touching realistic way he is trying to deal with it.
Then, there is a serial killer on the loose in So. CA (Orange County) which is a laid back beach community, and the serial killer begins communicating with the crime writer. Some serial killer books can be too grueling to read, and although I was glad I wasn't alone while reading this book, it was a good psychological thriller, and with the skill of a writer like T. Jefferson, this book was just hard to put down.
Scary one minute, and then heart breaking in the next chapter.
I'm hoping that this book will have some sort of sequel, at least with the crime writer coming back so we can see how his life is now, and his job is so interesting that there are many more story line possibilities.
I'm an avid read, and mystery is my favorite genre, and T. Jefferson Parker just gets better and better the more he writes.
I recommend you read any of his books, especially this one. The latest books with Merci Rayborne are great as is Silent Joe.
I love the California beach background and all of his main characters; you feel as if you've met them and care about their life. He is a truly gifted writer, and if I recommend a writer to read it is definetly T. Jefferson Parker!
Summer of Fear is for the truly hard core mystery fans, which I am, and the mixture of fear, pathos and also love, loss and closure, makes for a book that I didn't want to end.
Thank you T. Jefferson Parker.

I thought this book would be a good summer read, but unfortunately I just could not bring myself to read every word. About half way through it, I started skipping the paragraphs where lead-character Clare's thoughts were cut to half sentences and repeating words. I found this writing style very annoying. By the end of the book, I already knew what was going to happen, and only skimmed it to the final sentence. Reading it was much like watching a soap opera on TV. The characters, particularly Clare, often do and say stupid things. I'm sorry to say that I didn't connect with any of them.

I was impressed. I value the ability to have hard things happen in your life and be able to sit with them, open-hearted and with open mind. To feel them deeply, grow, connect with others... all the people in this novel were able to do so. I loved it and I learned from it.

Barbara Nelson, where have you been all my life??? "Summer of Rescue" captivated me from the first page and didn't let go until at least page 250. I would have finished it in one sitting, but couldn't quite handle all the feelings this book manifested in me at one time. After some self-reflection, I was able to pick up at page 250 and then read the rest of the book -- and it was just as good. BUY! BUY! BUY! This book! In other words, if you want to read a great novel, you should purchase "Summer of Rescue!" Otherwise you just have to listen to people like me tell you how great it is, and that might get annoying -- so find out yourself, silly!! I should note, too, that I am a female, but I think that this book is good for males to read, too. Again! 5 stars!

Truly a marvel of a book that should never have been published. The characters are wooden, they talk far too much, and in paragraph form (David Mamet can't hold a candle to this guy). The ending is telegraphed a third of the way through. And, the book is really boring. really boring. It's like reading Proust, but if Proust couldn't write, or think, or make sense. Just lots and lots of self-indulgent thoughts, strung together in sort of a plot, sort of an extended theater review of a play I never, ever want to see. Eek. This book is a mess.

Salamanca has been publishing since 1958, and since then his works have been often praised, often chastised, and relatively seldom understood. The reviews here at Amazon give a fair idea his books' tendency to be either loved or reviled, and I'll tell you honestly that whether you really want to buy this book depends on what you want as a reader.

If your taste has been honed on latter-day twentieth century realism, as filtered through a tradition which judges the real by its grittiness and roughness, you don't want this book. If you think the real and the surreal don't mix, you also don't want this book. If you don't think sellout and betrayal are major issues, or if you think the only forms they take are dramatic and violent ones, you'll wonder what all the fuss in the book is about. Finally, if you don't like prolonged conversations, don't believe in the "realism" of people speaking articulately and elegantly about their passions and failures, or have trouble connecting frame tales and inside narratives, you really don't want this book.

But, as you can see, I've given it five stars. As I argue at some length in my doctoral dissertation, Salamanca's books, including *That Summer's Trance* are beautiful. They partake of the traditions of the Gothic and of nature writing at least as much as they do of conventional "realism", and the comparison to Proust in one of the other reviews isn't a bad one at all. Their real analogue, though, is to the Jacobean plays to which the author sometimes refers: they're elegant, sometimes stylized, their characters are sometimes archetypes as well as characters, they're neither afraid of earnestness nor without irony, and their sense of disaster inevitably gathering to fullness is discernible from the beginning. If you liked *The Duchess of Malfi* or *The White Devil* or even *The Changeling*, you DO want this book. If you're not afraid of length and complication or put off by any of the factors I mention above, you want this book. If you like Proust, you probably want this book.

And why? Well, among my other (several dozen) reasons, there's the fact that Salamanca's writing is beautiful, at the sentence level. I warn you, many people hate him for this: they say it's *too* beautiful, too conscious, too unrealistic to be--well, real. I can think of no contemporary author whose style is like his, and, I warn you again, he's been castigated vigorously for that by some critics. I don't say they're necessarily wrong in despising the elaborately beautiful, or in wanting less sense of artifice. But I can't despise it. And I think it behooves us to remember that the original is not always the fashionable, the obviously cutting-edge, nor what we expect of the real. There are, I grant you, a lot of words (rather in the way that, in the film *Amadeus*, the ruler decided that Mozart's opera had "too many notes.") But they are good words. A sentence pulled at random from a random page: "The quality of everything had changed; the blazing, fervent world had become abandoned, enervated, a place of drifting sand and smothered footprints and lengthening shadows."

Honestly, if you want a shorter and less intimidating Salamanca to read, you might want to start with *Embarkation*, if you can find it. But if you're game, and if you're not put off by a style which few readers now really understand or enjoy, by all means have a go at *That Summer's Trance.* It's beautiful, and painful, and disastrous. I won't tell you the plot, since plenty of other reviews will (the poem from which the epigraph is taken, Santayana's sonnet "As in the Midst of Battle", will give you a pretty good idea of how it ends) but I will add that Jill is NOT "evil personified", as one reviewer claimed (quite the contrary) and that the book's numerous betrayals are nearly all the protagonist's. Not a comfortable book to read, either, if one's own betrayals and sellouts are at all tender to the touch.

This beautiful, and ultimately shattering, novel held me in a trance for weeks. Somehow, J. R. Salamanca manages to intertwine character-driven psychological and emotional suspense, richly poetic language and contemporary (nay, timeless) themes so skillfully, I read as though compelled. It left its mark, and one far deeper and more enduring than anything I could have imagined when I first entered the deceptively placid fictional world of its characters. Deeper praise I cannot offer than to say that I will miss and wonder about these people for a long time.

This is terrible, beautiful writing and knowing....

As a horsewoman and published author of horse stories for middle-grade readers, I was dismayed at the number of factual errors in this book and the often inappropriate behavior of both humans and horses.

Some examples:

Tom's been riding for only 2 years, not nearly long enough to qualify for open jumping events. In reality, he'd be in walk, trot, canter over fences, no more than two feet high.

The story takes place in mid-summer. The horse's winter coat would be long gone; therefore, no need to discuss clipping him out.

Tom and Nick buy a gray mare at a sale. Nick estimates she's about 3, then gives Tom a leg up onto the mare's back. What responsible riding instructor would put a student on an unknown horse's back?

They go for a ride; Nick calls for a canter, and Tom 'crouches' over Chancey's back. Good riders don't 'crouch' at a canter. They sit deep in the saddle with a straight back.

At one point, Tom 'sprang' into the saddle. Makes him sound like a kangaroo.

Tom often rides the horse hard, cantering over fences, then puts him away without cooling him off first; or worse, feeding him immediately after riding. Once, he interrupted a horse's feed (grain) to ride it at a gallop. It's a miracle it didn't colic.

And then Tom, mounted on Feather whom he's barely ridden, wins the open jumping class as a prestigous horse show, beating a class of 100+ experienced riders.

I could go on, but suffice it to say, if this so-called educational publisher wants to produce quality horse stories for children that will help teach them about the right way to handle horses and ponies, they should take a good look at this sub-standard series and reconsider continuing its publication.

This is a book about a boy named Tom who trains an unruly horse named Horton Chancellor. He works with Chancey every day calming him down in time for the Benbridge show, his snotty cousin returns home early and rides him instead. Tom still wins Benbridge on Feather, the little white mare. In the end Tom rescues Georgina and Chancey, and he gets to keep Chancey. I didn't like how Tom called Napoleon a "stupid animal" in the beginning. That was so mean!

This was such a great book that once I began reading it, I couldn't put it down! I had no idea what was going to happen to Chancey near the end and I wasn't sure how Tom was going to keep Chancey...This was a great book that's worth reading no matter how old you are! Just make sure you read the series in order because that way it makes more sense.

I think this story is pretty stupid. I picked it up thinking it would be good and it wasn't. It is not. Sara is absolutely horrible to her little sister. She makes way too much mischeif. But you can understand why she says some of the things she says. I would not recommend this book unless you like books that scare you and make you check ahead to let you know whether things will be all right.

Mrs. Sherwood, who is Emily's (narrator) mother and some of us agree: Sara Slater is a bad influence. The girls are 12, and Sara teaches Emily how to smoke. Sara teaches her to trick Sara's little sister. And when Emily stands up to her bad influence, they fight. And Emily's a good child. Sara's just a bad influence for all 12-year-old girls who may read this.

I read this when I was somewhere between 10 and 12 years old, and I absolutely loved it! I could relate to this too, because I had a friend like Sara growing up. She wasn't perfect, a little rough around the edges and we had some fights, but in the end she was a true friend, like the Sara in the book.

It is hard for me to believe that this book has been lauded to the skies. Mr. Archer's dialogue is juvenile and his plot lines are incredibly simplistic. The only surprize was at the end, and by then it was meaningless. I finished the book because I kept hoping it would get better. It never did.

The book was simply good

This book was one of the best books that i have ever read. Right down to the very end, the reader feels that they know each character. The plot and the characters were all very well developed and real to everyone. even though this book was published before I was born, I enjoyed every minute of it, and reccommend it to everyone!