The Perfect Summer [Mass Market Paperback]

Luanne Rice (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 29, 2003

Old friendships--and love--make all things new again.

The acclaimed author of Safe Harbor and other New York Times bestsellers returns to the seaside, delving into the heart of a once happy family facing troubled waters.

Bay McCabe relishes life’s simple pleasures, her children, her home by the sea. She has never forgotten the values of her Irish granny--the everyday happiness of family, good friends, and hard work. Bay and her husband, Sean, have weathered rough spells and moved on. Now a perfect summer, filled with the scent of beach roses, lies before them.

Charming and ambitious, Sean splits his energy between the town bank, his old fishing boat, and the family he seems to adore--until he leaves his young daughter stranded after school. As troubling memories resurface, a phone call confirms that Sean is missing. So begins a season that will change everything. As the door to all Bay cherishes seems to close forever, another opens, and an old love steps through. Embraced by enduring friendships, Bay will discover the truth of who she is--what love is--and how life’s deepest mysteries are often those closest to home.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Heartwarming and assured, Rice's latest novel (after The Secret Hour) addresses timeless themes and will linger with readers long after the reading is done. For years, Bay McCabe has kept her family together despite her husband's unfaithfulness. When Sean disappears one afternoon, she discovers that he has embezzled money from many in their small seaside town. Suddenly, Bay and her three children are besieged by the press, isolated from their community and broke. The eventual discovery of Sean's dead body raises larger questions like why he stole, who helped him and whether he might have been murdered. One clue reconnects Bay with widower Daniel Connolly, a boat builder with whom she shared a teenage attraction. As solid as Sean was slick, Daniel rekindles Bay's affections even as his troubled daughter Eliza helps Bay's daughter Annie cope with the summer's horrors. But when it turns out that Danny's late wife may have been entangled with Sean, their tenuous tie threatens to break. Rich with scenic settings and colorful characters, this is a beautifully crafted novel despite some 11th-hour plot contrivances. Rice's ability to evoke the lyricism of the seaside lifestyle without over-sentimentalizing contemporary issues like adultery, anorexia or white-collar crime is just one of the many gifts that make this a perfect summer read.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Rice revisits the small Connecticut town of Hubbard's Point, adding another family to the long list of residents from her previous books. Bay McCabe seems to have the ideal American life with a successful banker husband and three wonderful, normal, healthy children, but on one idyllic summer day life as she knows it falls apart. Sure, she and her husband Sean have had marital problems, but he promised things would change and they do, for the worse. When Sean doesn't come home, Bay starts thinking about all the pitfalls of her marriage, and then the FBI shows up and informs her that Sean is under investigation for embezzlement. Her life is in chaos and the children are terrified, especially her eldest, Annie, who believes that if she could only be what her father wanted her to be, i.e., thin and athletic, he wouldn't have disappeared. A loving look at family and the issues that must be faced when a crisis threatens its cohesion. Patty Engelmann
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; Reissue edition (July 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553584049
• ISBN-13: 978-0553584042
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.2 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #227,056 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

LUANNE RICE is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-nine novels, most recently The Silver Boat. Her books, including Cloud Nine and Dream Country, often center on love, family, nature and the sea, and have been translated into twenty-four languages. A number of Rice's novels have been adapted for television, including Crazy in Love for TNT, Blue Moon for CBS, the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentations of Follow the Stars Home and Silver Bells, and Beach Girls as a summer drama series for Lifetime Television. She has contributed a theatrical piece to the new off Broadway play Motherhood Out Loud. Rice loves nature and frequently writes about it. Born in New Britain, Connecticut, Rice divides her time between New York City and Old Lyme, Connecticut, in the house where she spent all her childhood summers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fine police procedural romance, August 3, 2003

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Perfect Summer (Mass Market Paperback)

For twenty-five years Bay and Sean McCabe have been married and lived in Hubbards Point, Connecticut. They have three preadolescent children. The couple has had their ups and downs especially caused by Seans womanizing. However, ever since last year when their oldest child Annie overheard her father speaking romantically to another woman shaking up Sean, the relationship seems honest and solid.

The youngest child calls from the little league field to inform her mom that her dad failed to pick her up as previously arranged. Falling into routine, Bay rationalizes that Sean must be running late at the bank where he is a vice president and drives over to bring Peg home. When an employee of Sean calls asking for him and why he missed a key meeting, Bay begins to worry. Annie rides her bike to the family boat with Bay and a close friend Tara following. They find blood and call the police. Bay learns the FBI is involved because of embezzlement shenanigans at the bank. With her only lead being Dan Connolly, someone she had a puppy crush on before she married, Bay makes inquiries into what happened to her spouse.

Luanne Rices latest thriller is THE PERFECT SUMMER novel for fans of police procedural romances. The action is loaded and the tension shrewdly elevated especially as Bay begins to realize that her spouse is not coming home and as she, Tara, and Annie begin to unravel the truth. Though the interrelationships are explained, they still seem stretched until the dichotomously plausible final note to Annie is found and explains all to readers who will find this an entertaining romantic suspense tale.

Harriet Klausner

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, as usual....., August 12, 2003

By 

Marion "[e-mail]" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Perfect Summer (Mass Market Paperback)

I've come to depend upon Luanne Rice's books to always be riveting, romantic and well-written and this one did not disappoint me. She writes about broken families with compassion, warmth and sensitivity. The subplot in this one of Dan's daughter's anorexia and 'cutting' was timely and handled with care. I highly recommend this and all of her books.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I always enjoy a Luanne Rice book, November 10, 2003

By 

Theresa W (mi, usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Perfect Summer (Mass Market Paperback)

Over the last year Luanne Rice has become a favorite author of mine. I'll admit that the more I read of hers, I do wish for a bit more originality, going back to her earlier books, that might not have gotten a lot of acclaim, but they sure gained me as a reader. Maybe it's this way with most writers, after you've read about 10 of their books...I don't know. Either way, this still was a good book with a great plot- the bit of mystery was a little unique for Rice- maybe she's realizing her faithful readers need a bit of variety? Over-all, I recommend this book to faithful fans and those who have yet to try a story by Rice. The books always have a touch of magic.