Customer Reviews

A Month of Summer (Blue Sky Hills Series #1)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Lisa Wingate's tenth book, A Month of Summer

"Life, Claude says is a journey by train. Outside the window, the scenery is rushing by. If you look away for even an instant, something passes uncaptured. Far in the future, when you leaf through the photo album of memory, your finger, aged and crooked, will rub lightly over that empty space, and you'll wonder, What might have been there?" And so begin the journeys of Rebecca, Hanna Beth, Claude, Edward, Teddy and others as they all eventually meet in a Texas nursing home.

Rebecca, Edward's estranged 45 year old daughter, living with her husband and daughter in California, gets a call from the Dallas police that her father has been found wandering the neighborhood, and that something must be done. This brings Rebecca to Texas and so begin her experiences with an aging father, afflicted with dementia, and a mother in law, Hannah Beth, who is in the nursing home after a stroke.

As I read this extraordinary story, my mind kept wandering to the movie that's sure to come. Who would be in it? Jack Nicholson could be Claude, the kindly nursing home resident who once drove the trains loaded with the former prisoners from the concentration camps. Julia Roberts could be Rebecca. Meryl Streep could be Hanna Beth, while Tom Hanks could be Edward. What a movie that will be!

Wingate takes a serious subject, a subject that each of us may one day encounter, creates interesting characters and weaves them into exciting stories and mixes the story with humor that makes this book unforgettable. The Incontinence Olympics description is a must read! I'm still laughing about it.

I started reading the book in the late afternoon and didn't lay it down until finished in the early morning. I really loved the book and highly recommend it! I have now read it three times.

Ed

This book was an all nighter. I just couldn't put it down. Lisa always writes such interesting books, especially for women. I love eveything I have read by her to date. I always look forward to the next release.

Great book as usual. Very nice story ~ not so predictable ~ just good clean writing.

Rebecca Macklin has it all, but feels a void whenever she thinks of her parents' divorce when she was twelve and the abandonment she felt with her father out of her life. She and her Mom moved to California, and she never wanted to return to Dallas in the past twenty five or so years. Her life is great except for a few nagging worries about her husband Kyle's interest in his clients and office staff. Her fairly settled world is sent spinning when the Dallas Police call and tell her they found her father wandering the streets in a disheveled state. Rebecca has known about her father's Alzheimer's, but had allowed herself to push it aside. Let his second family deal with the issue. Her step-mother is in a nursing home recovering from a stroke and social services will be called in unless family can make arrangements. Grudgingly, Rebecca travels back to Dallas for the first time since she left as a child. She is ill prepared to face the memories and is overwhelmed by the needs of her father, the feelings towards her father's second wife Hanna Beth, and her adult son, Teddy. As she struggles to make care arrangements, sort through the home she once loved, and to help Teddy, she faces the memories of her late mother and the feelings of betrayal. Spending time under the roof that had sheltered her as a child, she begins to understand that all may not have been as it seemed to twelve year old Rebecca. A Month of Summer travels the winding road of difficult decisions and the willingness to open a heart to new truths. The portrayal of Alzheimer's, stroke recovery and cognitive damage are facets of the character's life, not the characters, themselves. Anyone who lived in the Dallas area thirty years ago will recognize the look and feel of Dallas they remember.

Rebecca Macklin could be yet another in a series of "have it all, but life is empty" female characters that seem to populate books today. A busy attorney, who also runs a boutique, has an accomplished young daughter and successful attorney husband. Boo hoo, boo hoo. And the review could stop there. However.... within the pages of A Month of Summer, Lisa Wingate has deftly crafted a multigenerational tale of love, deception and the power of forgiveness and redemption.
Just be careful not to start reading this book during a bath....or you'll find yourself all pruney because you don't want to stop long enough to get out and dry off....even if the hot water is all gone!

This book is amazing, and it really changed my perspective and gave me healing and hope in my mind. We were taking care of my precious father in our home. After breaking a hip, he had gone blind, couldn't walk, his slight dementia had accelerated, he was in diapers. It was so hard for me to deal with. My daughter got this book from the library and I read it on a Wednesday night. Stayed up all night, could not put in down, cried as I read it because it spoke so clearly of so many of my own feelings. Dad was in hospice respite care for five days at this time. After reading the book, I felt a surge of new life in me on Thursday and worked so hard at preparing his house to bring him home from Hospice Respite on Friday morning. They called at before 7:00 a.m. on Friday and I thought they were calling to tell me what time to expect him home; but instead, they said when they made the rounds at 5:l5, he had passed away in his sleep. I was just shocked even though we knew death was imminent. I thought I would be better prepared, I wasn't. This book made all the difference in the world, and it is still helping me. If you are a caregiver or know someone who is, please read the book for yourself. It will give you understanding on this. I will be there for my friends in the future when they become caregivers or even for someone I don't know if they need help. It makes one see how precious and fragile life really is, and it makes us see what is important - love. Love is not tangible, it cannot be seen, does not have a price tag on it but it is so real and it last forever, it is priceless. This was my first read by this author, but I certainly plan on reading her other books and keeping up with her new ones.

Lisa Wingate is a gifted writer and this story is no exception. All the characters wove together and you could feel the love of each person she wrote about. So much should be done for the elderly and this book makes the reader realize the scary moments of getting old and relying on outsiders to take care of us. This story was sweet yet real. I felt the scenes written in the nursing home were real and it was as if Lisa herself had been with a love one that had been in one. This is a must read for anyone who has aging parents or who may be reaching that time of life. I would give this 4 1/2 stars and the only reason for the four is the story ended too fast and I believe that was to make room for the sequel that is sure to follow. A great read none the less.

A beautifully written story of family! Lisa Wingate's books are a true find! I started with Tending Roses and what a great surprise it was for me to find years later the books that were written after Tending Roses which intertwined all the inspiring characters. The characters are so real and endearing. I wasn't sure she could top that series, but "A Month of Summer" is now another treasure. Highly Recommended!

This is an excellent piece of writing giving the reader worthwhile insight into some characters. Hanna Beth was initially perceived as a ruthless person yet as we get to know her, we understand her situation more fully, even though she is a stroke victim who cannot talk. Teddy, a lovable character, finds those who need him, in ways we might not imagine. I found this book stirring and hopeful. A wonderful read.

Good, wonderful, great. What else can I say? She is an amazing writer. Having dealt with caretaking issues of older relatives myself, this book was a Godsend. More than anything, it reminded me that through difficulty come some of the treasures of life. There is always a place for hope, and this book nurtures that place. A beautiful story of family finding their way to one another. Not to be missed.

A Month of Summer was filled with situations to make a reader stop and realize how precious life and relationships can be for everyone (healthy or unwell). I especially liked Claude and the mule story. At one time or another, all of us are faced with being either the blind or the deaf mule - needing someone to help us understand what comes next. I think that through her writings, Lisa Wingate helped all the mules understand the true meaning of family.