Customer Reviews

The Summer Country

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Jim Hetley does a marvelous job of blending modern day Maine to his Celtic Fantasy universe "Summer Country."

Hetley starts the book having us follow Maureen who seems quite paranoid; it turns out that she has reason to be! Shining knight Brian comes to her rescue and vanquishes her foe...oh, wait...he isn't a knight. Maureen lets him walk her home, where she dumps him upon finding her "boyfriend" in bed with her sister Jo.

Hetley's characterization is phenominal and true to life. His settings are detailed, but not intrusive.

If you like extraordinary fantasy, dragons, magic and a good read, you will like this book. I did. I've already read it twice!

Candy

Maureen Pierce, a 30 year old stuck in a dead end job, is going crazy. Talking to trees, petrified of all men, and hearing voices that no one else hears, her sister Jo is fed up. With a new man in her life, Jo doesn't need the baggage her sister presents and threatens to kick her out of the house...that is, until a tall, blonde stranger walked into Maureen's life.

Brian Arthur Pendragon Albion is a Templar, of a race of Ancient Ones from a magical land three steps away in any direction. The Summer Country is a place where talented witches shape the land, and everything is only as good or bad as you make it. Brian scents the power in Maureen's blood, and that one smell tells him that she is also an Ancient One, separated from her true home.

Through the work of a ruthless dark witch, Brian, Maureen, Jo, and Jo's fiancé all end up in the Summer Country. Maureen captured by a warlord, Brian serving as a pleasure slave, and Jo and her fiancé trapped as blood sacrifices to the land. Does Maureen have the power she needs to escaper her prison and save the others?

With this novel, James A. Hetley has woven a mystical Celtic world that is as dark as it is beautiful. Unlike most Celtic novels on the shelf today, he doesn't shy away from the blacker side of Celtic myths, and that is what makes the book so unique and wonderful. The characters are engaging and the dialogue true to life, the villains wonderfully crafted and the world richly described. This book is a fabulous debut from a new writer, and I hope Hetley continues in this same vein for future books.

I borrowed this book from my local library. It's so good that I know I'll want to read it again someday!

This is story of a quartet of characters drawn into amazing circumstances - Maureen, Jo, Brian, & David. The main character is Maureen. She remembers stories told to her of the old country, the summer country, told by her departed grandfather. She assumes those are stories of Ireland. Maureen also talks to trees and sometimes hears things and sees things that no one else hears or sees. Maureen believes she is insane. She lives with her sister Jo who also believes her sister is insane. By some unspoken agreement with her highly dysfunctional family, Jo keeps watch over her sister.

In the beginning of the book Maureen is stalked by a large man on her way home from work. He corners her in an alley and as he approaches is hacked to bits by Brian. Though dressed in ordinary clothes, he is actually a Pendragon - a knight who protects human's from the "old ones." Maureen believes Brian must also be insane until she sees her would-be attacker consumed by blue flames and disappear. Initially she believes in him, then later does not trust him, blaming her suspicions of her own insanity for creating the deadly scene. Her sister Jo and boyfriend Brian are lovers who live under the same roof with Maureen. Their relationship irritates Maureen. She believes Jo stole David from her.

As the story progresses Maureen is drawn into the summer country by one of the "old ones" by magic. The summer country, once a wonderful placed, is twisted and full of hate and fear, and terrible violence. Jo sees her sister disappear before her eyes. She stands still and closes her eyes and wills herself to find her sister. Both Maureen and Jo are of faery blood, but don't know it. Jo opens her eyes and finds herself in the summer country in the middle of an enchanted, dangerous forest. Brian and David discover that both women have disappeared into the summer country and go there after them.

What follows is not a sweet faery tale. It's a fearsome faery land filled with terrors beyond belief and dangers that stretch the bonds of love. To tell more would ruin the story.

This book is so well written that the characters seem real to the reader and you actually learn to care what happens to them. Scenes are so well crafted that you can picture everything. As you close the last page of the book and the story ends you feel like you are saying goodbye to an old friend. Not many books can evoke that feeling. I sincerely hope the author comes out with another book. I would stand in line to buy one. I'll be buying this one for my own shelf as it is one of the most engrossing, wondrous stories I have every read!

The leading lady is a paranoid schizophrenic with personal space issues because of being molested as a child. I've never read a book where the main character had so many intense and debilitating issues...It's fantastic!

Well, I must say at first I was a bit skeptical about this book. It has quite a few good reviews, but there is one in particualar that caught me off gaurd. He throws around accusations about the author and the talent the author has. I read his other reviews and realized this was just an imbecile who writes reviews as if he had any inkling of what was really going on. Fascinated with the'Tolkien world' he compares all other fantasy fiction novels to this. Imbecile, I say. Pay no attention to what he says. Most authors will pale in comparison to the Tolkien craze that has happened not too long ago. So, I read this book and was thoroughly captivated by this author. Fresh new outlook on Celtic lore and good story line. I will be reading the Winter Oak.

The Summer Country, automatically I thought of Aurthurian times-Queen Guinevere, Lancelot..but no. This novel has so much more. You cannot predict the outcome of this book, nor comprehend what it is about until you pick it up and read it.
Maureen Pierce cannot escape Buddy Johnson. He raped her body, mind, and soul. Her sister, Jo, is someone she hates almost as much as Buddy; but to save the man she loves, she'll have to become her.
The Summer Country is a book rich in magic, mystery, seduction, and overcomming fears. I can't wait for Hetley's next novel.

First, a caveat. Don't let the pretty cover art fool you. This is not a "pretty" book. It's really more horror than fantasy, full of violence and truly twisted characters. That said, I enjoyed this book. It stands out, with a few others, as a novel that presents a distinctive and original way of looking at the Otherworld, the faerie realm.

Hetley's "Summer Country" is ruled by those of the Old Blood, scheming and utterly inhuman despots who keep slaves and mold reality to their wills. Into a war between two of this kind, come four others. Maureen, an emotionally wounded, reclusive young woman, carrying the Old Blood unknowingly in her veins. Jo, her sensual older sister. David, a performer of Celtic music. And Brian, born of the Old Blood but sworn to Christianity. Maureen and Brian are each desired by a powerful ruler of the Summer Country as brood stock. For the Old Blood comes with certain liabilities, and these two will be good for the bloodlines.

And so they are drawn into the Summer Country, where human weapons are useless. Only Power can win the day. Will the newcomers find their Power before it's too late?

My only gripe about this book is that I wouldn't have minded it being longer. The romantic subplots seem a little rushed, as does the defeat of at least one of the villains . And I would certainly like to know more about Brian and the mission of the Pendragons.

I found this book on accident at the bookstore, and I almost put it down, if not for the great cover art. I started the book on a Tuesday night, and by Thursday morning, I was done with it. The only problem with that was after it was over, I wanted more! If you like fantasy, but are in the mood for a some 'real world' as well, this is your book.
Maureen finds herself with a new and very different friend after he saves her life from someone who wants more from her than her wallet. She has had problems since childhood trusting men in particular, so even though he does try to protect her, she cannot let herself trust him. There is also an interesting sub-plot involving her sister and her sister's boyfriend.
The only thing I would have changed with this book was that we did not really get a lot of character detail about Brian after the beginning. He is still in the story, but I just thought he could have been more developed and/or changed at the end like the other characters.

Bottom line: if you don't mind some violence (read: there is rape, although not explicit, murder, and plenty of blood) accompanying an enveloping story, this is a great read!

In Naskeag Falls, Maine, Maureen Pierce is thought of as the mad one who talks to trees and receives responses from the woody dwellers. She attended a four-year college but works at a menial job while her sister went to a technical school and makes a good living with benefits. Maureen is afraid of men so when one follows her home one night, she is grateful for the intervention of Brian Albion.

Maureen doesn't know that Brian is a Pendragon, a being whose job it is to keep apart the world of the Old Ones separate from that of the humans. Brian realizes that Maureen is an Old One and that the being who tried to abduct her was trying to take her back to The Summer Country where he can take her for a mate. Maureen doesn't believe him so that when another old one uses glamour to seduce her into coming to THE SUMMER COUNTRY, she eagerly goes. her sister follows her thee along with Brian and Jo's boyfriend. That is when the battle between good and evil really begins.

This stand alone novel is a rich and deeply textured high fantasy novel that will appeal to readers who want to visit a land that never was but should have been. Maureen is an interesting protagonist who doesn't fit in the human world but is right at home in THE SUMMER COUNTRY. It's hard to believe this is James A. Hetley's first novel because it is so well constructed, colorful and imaginative that it seemingly defies the laws of writing as only a seasoned vet could have written this.

Harriet Klausner

James Hetley's "The Summer Country" is the best new Celtic fantasy I've read in quite some time. (I read most Celtic fantasy that I come across, and most of them are formulaic crap.) Though the ending was a touch predictable, the characters were exceedingly well done, and the perspective shifts between them, though initially abrupt, lend significant texture to the novel. Reading the first chapters through the eyes of fey, troubled Maureen engages the reader's sympathy, and then the first context switch to equally-sympathetic, wildly different sister Jo tumbles the whole situation into a thousand shades of grey. I was really impressed by that. The world is Celtic-inspired but uniquely created, a branching off of mythology rather than a reinterpretation of canon. Most of the song lyrics are in Irish, which I really liked -- if you don't speak Irish, it gives you some exotic flavor that's explained just partially enough for sensibility, and if you do, you perceive additional layers of detail and meaning to the situations the songs back. I can't believe this is a first novel; it's a stunning debut. If you like this sort of thing, go buy this book