Summertime

I found this book at a yard sale and I'm not sure why I even picked it up, but I'm really glad I did. The main character has fled to New York after her baby dies of SIDS and left her husband and her extended family in California. She is called back home when her father dies in what is later ruled a homicide. Add to that she is the granddaughter of a Russian immigrant and after her return home, the skeletons in the family closet start to rattle. Complicated by her own grief over the loss of her baby, some memories are lost or distorted. The end is shocking and one I didn't see coming. It makes one wonder just what family history is. How true are the stories that are handed down from generation to generation? An awesome read!

I found this book in a parking lot. I had no idea who it belonged to. So with a half hour to kill, I began to read it. This is the first book I have ever read where I didn't have to read paragaphs twice, nothing could distract me from it. The author didn't complicate this mystery to the point of confusion. There are also positive themes to consider from this story. This book could be a great movie. As a treat to myself, when I finished the book, was to give it a great review. I guess what I'm trying to say was that it was a great book from chapter one.

I picked up this book on a whim and it turned out to be a "can't put it down" selection. It tells the story of a woman whose life has been a series of personal losses capped by the loss of her beloved father. This is the catalyst for her return to California, where she finally digs deep to find the truth. Is she telling us, the readers, the truth? We find out as the book progresses, and it kept me guessing and thinking. I highly recommend Summertime!

After her six month baby dies from SIDS, Luce Schaffer leaves Northern California and travels to New York where she takes a job as an investment banker. She makes no friends and her co-workers know nothing about the husband back home, the father who visited her only once in three years, or the mother confined to a mental institution. One day while she is brokering the biggest deal of her career she is summoned home by her older sister Jane who informs her that their father died.When Luce arrives at her father's home, the police informs her that her father, beloved by all, was the victim of a homicide. Everyone in the family is understandably shocked because Eric was so cherished and didn't have any enemy in the world. The longer Luce stays in California, the more family skeletons are revealed, bringing the police one step closer to solving this and other related killings.SUMMER TIME is a masterful work of psychological suspense as well as a heart wrenching drama about a family who has known much tragedy, especially the protagonist who feels guilty that she left her beloved father when she couldn't come to terms with her own grief. Liz Rigbey knows how to write a compelling story with an ending that is both unexpected and shocking.Harriet Klausner