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REVIEW
Sail into an unforgettable read What woman wouldn’t jump at the chance for a vacation on the sea, especially one that would allow her to reconnect with her high school girlfriends while sailing to exotic ports unknown? What woman wouldn’t consider a vacation like that a dream come true? In Jacquelyn Mitchard’s “Still Summer” we find out how dreamlike – or nightmarish, perhaps – a vacation on the sea can become. It seems like a lifetime ago that Tracy Kyle and her high school buddies were called “The Godmothers.” And now they’re getting back together. It’s been so long, it only seems right that their reunion should be held in grand style. Tracy chooses the perfect venue – a sailboat cruise. Tracy’s cousin and fellow Godmother, Janis, can’t make the trip, so Tracy must talk her daughter, Cammie, into going in Janis’ place. Cammie, an angry 19-year-old with a serious grudge against Mom, is nursing a broken heart, but fits comfortably with her “aunts,” Olivia and Holly, and tags along. Olivia, too, is nursing a broken heart. Or maybe a broken spirit. The former Contessa Montefalco, Olivia is now a widow returning to the states. With expensive tastes and an uppity attitude that can make even a big boat feel small, Olivia seems set to test the patience of her friends right from the start. And then there’s Holly – the jokester, the nurse, the mom of two young teenage boys waiting dutifully at home for her return. Although she often feels like the odd-man-out, her friendship with Tracy is fierce, and her bond with Cammie motherly. Tracy is strong. She’s willful. Athletic. A leader. The one who organizes the trip. The one who’ll take the blame – and the burden – if something were to go wrong. At first the sea is their friend – calm and lovely, their captain Lenny self-assured, knowledgeable and likeable. His mate, Michel, is sexy and alluring and spares no time in getting into the good graces of the women. Perhaps too good with some of them. It’s a time of adventure and high spirits for the ladies – for learning about who they are and how they fit together. And then someone makes a mistake. And mistakes are so often followed by misfortune. Like dominoes falling, bad fate calls again and again. The women find themselves stranded in the sea – one of them injured and falling ill, one of them unwilling to pull her weight, one miserably heartbroken, all testing their limits of strength and courage and their depth, or lack of depth, of friendship. All learning more about themselves and each other than they ever wanted to know. Mitchard’s gently powerful narrative laps about the reader, the words themselves like tender waves, almost lyrical as if the story is being sung rather than read. Truly beautiful in style, Mitchard etches out deep characters for whom we feel deeply. Characters whose fates are important to us and whose internal thoughts and feelings almost feel like our own. “Still Summer” takes its time building to the meat of the plot – expect somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 pages of carrying the foreboding feeling that something’s about to go wrong before it actually does – and at times the foreshadowing seems a little blatant. Combined with the occasional shift to an unclear set of characters on another boat, the first half of the book was at times confusing and had me feeling impatient. But once the plot hits, expect a book that you will not want to put down. I carried this book with me everywhere I went for two days – unable to stop myself from picking it up during even the tiniest snippet of time, just to find out what happens to the women who had so grown on me. And I must admit, Mitchard achieved something very few writers have ever accomplished with me – she moved me to tears. Not once, but several times over, at times I felt I was floating along on the sailing ship Opus with Tracy, Holly, Olivia and Cammie, facing my own mortality and the fate of my children and family in the wake of my leaving them. I won’t give away any surprises, except to say that there are a few. And I won’t give away the ending, except to say that it was entirely – and poignantly – satisfying. “Still Summer” is the newest addition in my “favorite book” category, and if I were a star-giver, I’d give it five out of five stars, with an exclamation mark at the end, if for no other reason than it tested me, made me explore the inner workings of myself, and…good grief…got those tears out of me. Given the choice of staying safely on ground or aboard that ill-fated ship with Tracy, Olivia, Cammie and Holly – even knowing the fate of the sailing ship Opus – I’d have to say I’ll sail with Jacquelyn Mitchard any time. Jennifer Brown writes and moms from her home in Liberty, Missouri. Two-time winner of the Erma Bombeck global humor award, her humor column regularly appears in The Kansas City Star. Catch her humor-writing classes, Funny One and Funny, Too!, at LssWritingSchool.com. You may contact Jennifer at zoise30@gmail.com. And if you don’t mind the smell of maple syrup, she just might write back!
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