Customer Reviews

Summer Light

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

May Taylor is a single mother and successful wedding planner, having inherited the business from her mother and grandmother. Kylie, her sensitive six -year-old daughter, has her worried, though, because Kylie seems to see and sense things that other people don't.

On a recent plane trip, Kylie sees an angel near a big giant of a man. When a fire on the plane forces the plane to make an emergency landing, Martin Cartier, the giant and star hockey player for the Boston Bruins, helps Kylie and May off the plane.

Attracted to May in a way that he can't explain, Martin begins driving down to Connecticut from Boston to see her. May is different from any of the women that Martin has known. She falls in love with him as a person, not merely the handsome rich hockey star.

Life is good for the Cartiers when Martin marries May, and Kylie, Martin, and May become a family. But events from Martin's past threaten to tear them apart even as the future shows signs of tribulations to come. Will their love be strong enough to keep them together amidst the trials of life?

Luanne Rice has written an extraordinary novel. Brimming with emotion, SUMMER LIGHT is a tender triumph showing how love can survive even under the most difficult of circumstances. And the touch of the paranormal adds an ethereal dimension to this read. SUMMER LIGHT will make you laugh, make you cry, and make you very glad that you read this novel.

Since 1988 I have been a loyal and avid reader of Luanne Rices books. While browsing at the library years ago I first came across Crazy in Love and today I always look forward to a new Luanne Rice book. That said I must now admit that Summer Light was one of Rices more disappointing books. Yes it did contain many of Rices themes Ive come to enjoy which include the love of a couple for each other, the love of a parent for a child and relatives who disappoint us. But ultimately this book was not a satisfying read. And this may very well be the authors concentration on angels communing with the dead and the author also delving into the world of extra sensory perception.

May is a wedding planner in Hubbard Point, Conn. and the single mother of a very unusual young girl Kaylie. After the death of her great grandmother and a traumatic event, Kaylie begins to see things before they happen and also talks to people who have died. Fearing for her daughters sanity, May seeks the help of paranormal experts who have few clues as to what is happening to Kaylie. On a flight home from an appointment in Canada with these experts, Kaylie asks a man to help save her mother and herself when the plane crashes. The man is a great hockey player, Martin Cartier, who has secrets of his own. These include the death of his young daughter a few years before, and his hatred for his father Serge, also a former hockey player, who is now in prison. This chance encounter between May, Martin and Kaylie and the subsequent plane crash which Kaylie predicted will have far reaching consequences which will lead to their association and the book progresses to another tragedy and a predictable conclusion.

Unfortunately for me this was a poor example of Luanne Rices plot and characters development. I never found myself either interested in these people or their situation. I do suggest reading some of Luanne Rices really good books like Blue Moon or Safe Harbor to see how good this author can present a book which leaves you yearning to read more by her. Im sorry to say Summer Light just wasnt one of them..

Having read a few of Ms. Rice's other novels, I was looking forward to this one, not the least because it was partly set in a part of Canada that I know very well.

The story itself was not up to Ms. Rice's usual standards: the plot seemed contrived and the characters lacked credibility. More irritating, however, was the author's shoddy research. Ms. Rice's descriptions of hockey games were laughable, and her descriptions of the setting were downright ludicrous. Ms. Rice should stick to writing about topics she knows and understands, or make sure she is writing about fictitious places.

Summer Light by Luanne Rice is a wonderfully heartwarming and touching story. This is definitely Rice at her best! It is romantic and sentimental, without being overbearing, with a touch of the mystical thrown in!

May Taylor is a single mother with a "gifted" daughter, who claims to speak with angels. While flying home to Connecticut, Kylie is warned of the impending aircraft danger by one of her angel friends, and seeks the aid of Martin Cartier to help her and her mother to safety. Not knowing why, Kylie knows that this man will somehow play a role in their lives. Cartier, a tough, kind, and greatly sought after bachelor, is a hockey player with the Boston Bruins. He pursues May until she agrees to marry him.

Rice once again weaves magic with her characters and one cannot help but fall right into their lives and into their emotions. Balancing issues of death, single parenthood, dual careers, scandal, parental issues, as well as hailing from two different countries, Rice brings home to her readers that any relationship requires commitment, work, dedication, honesty, and most of all love. I was endeared to this quote from the book, "That's what a married couple does . . .love each other through sickness and health, for richer, for poorer, in good times and bad. They love each other's children and try to honor each other's parents - even when the whole thing seems impossible."

Their marriage is tested, challenged and tested again and Rice's portrayal of a family ripped apart by the trials of life and past events is uncannily real. I could not put this latest bestseller down and was completely swept away and into the saga. I absolutely loved this book and Rice confirms once again, that only love is real. This is one book that will touch your heart and warm your soul - a definite keeper.

This is a very good book, but again (as with Rice's recent Firefly Beach) it's more of a lite sampling of the character depth that Luanne Rice has delivered so consistently so many times in the past. It's an engaging, original story of single mom wedding planner May raising her magical daughter Kylie and marrying charismatic but troubled hockey star Martin Cartier. Martin deals with the earlier tragic death of his own young daughter, Natalie, by repression and denial and is mired in unforgiveness towards his convict father, himself a hockey legend, for contributing to Natalie's death and for perpetrating other family betrayals.

Rice weaves a fabric with many interesting threads - Kylie's magical prescience and angel friends, a wedding planner's enabling role in true love, the importance of childhood friends in the adult experience, the origin of sports rivalry in childhood disillusionments - but somehow the whole cloth of the book remains patchy, almost threadbare in spots. I never understood how Martin could be so closed-in emotionally for most of the story and still attract May, who overall impressed me with her own emotional maturity and self-awareness.

As with all her books, she uses a few gripping, almost gruesome scenes to advance character exposition and plot. This is absolutely where Rice shines in her latest two books. While extending such intensity would probably make for too painful a read, I find myself wishing something in the story had lasted longer or had been explored to greater depth. That said, even a less than top rated Luanne Rice book will provide much more reading satisfaction than most of the 5 star reads out there.

May Taylor, boarding the plane with her beloved six-year-old daughter Kylie, notices all the couples. May feels lonely in spite of her cherished daughter and she feels hurt because the child's father deserted them. Kylie begins talking with an angel that no one else can see. This frightens May who worries that her child is schizophrenic. However, that concern goes on the back burner when the plane makes an emergency landing. Hockey superstar Martin Cartier helps mother and daughter jump down the slide.

He wonders how Kylie knew trouble was coming because she had stopped to ask him to help her on her way back from the restroom. Kylie says that his daughter told her, but Martin knows his child is dead. Still Martin feels a bond with Kylie and an attraction to May, but his personal life is filled with tragedy and sadness while May has little faith in men and in her daughter's clairvoyant abilities. Only a loving child with the help of angels could turn this duo into a couple, but that may prove too big a mission.

SUMMER LIGHT is a fabulous relationship drama that uses the paranormal to focus on lonely people. The story line is beautiful as Martin and May struggle with attraction and love while worrying about Kylie's mental health. The paranormal not only feels real and right, it helps propel the plot and provide understanding to the lead trio. Fans of contemporary romance with a dash of the paranormal will find Luanne Rice's latest novel a poignant, interesting, and entertaining tale.

Harriet Klausner

This was my first book by this author. I really thought it could have been interesting, but it just ended up boring. The main character, May, seems so indecisive. Kind of a doormat, really. You never really get to know her at all. The story of how these two meet and fall in love is just too unbelievable. I mean they barely had a conversation, and next thing they were getting married. (A wedding that excludes almost every important person in the bride's life, for some reason.) I was kind of bothered by Martin, every time he gets mad at someone, he just stomps off. And I never got why May keeps nagging him about his father. I ended up skipping to the end of the book just to get it over with.

This is one of Luanne Rice's best. If you have never read Rice before, or tried to read her before,(say, Cloud Nine-Dream Country) but couldn't, "Summer Light" is a very fast paced novel and better than her previous works. I had to force myself to put it down. I don't always like to finish a novel in one sitting, but I could have with this.

There were several times when I was near tears, which doesn't always happen when I read romances.

The themes of forgiveness, miracles, and lots of medical terminology running through this novel, as one of the main characters, Hockey player, Martin Cartier, is going blind--very sad and tragic, as he tries to wield a hockey puck but can't see. Martin Cartier needs a miracle, and he just might have found it in his love interest, May Taylor, and her "psychic" daughter, 6-year-old, Kylie.

Luanne Rice is a very emotional writer, more emotional than intellectual. The writing isn't as thought-provoking as it is emotion-feeling provoking. But this is what most romance readers want: writing that makes you feel, rather than think. Although, out of all the romance writers, Luanne Rice (along with Barbara Delinsky and Nicholas Sparks) is the most intelligent and realistic.

If you liked Barbara Delinskys "Lake News" or Nicholas Sparks "A Walk to Remember" then you would like "Summer Light".

So, on to Luanne Rice's "Firefly Beach", as I am looking forward to reading a lot more by this author.

I can't believe all the readers who find this an amazing read or get up early to finish reading this book! Yes, I stuck it out and finished the book, but to think this was one of the best books to read,YIKES. You really need to read a lot more if this is one of the best. It is sappy, boring, predictable and totally unbelievable. Yeah right, owls in a bridal shop. A hockey player who is so "in love", with a character like May. Really? Only in a silly story like this. Sorry, I just don't buy it. I'd rather read Cinderella again!

I probably have a chapter left to go and i can't wait for this book to be over. I get no pleasure out of the the main characters, I wouldn't want them as friends and I really wish they had more of a sense of humor. I don't get why Martin and May got together in the first place and why they felt they had to get married a few weeks after meeting. I couldn't find anything they had in common. I'm irritated by May's constant harping about Martin's father when it's absolutely clear Martin has good reasons for feeling the way he does.

Spoiler -- Martin comes home late at night after a bruising hockey game and a three-hour drive to be with May and the first thing she does is talk about reconciling with his estranged father. When he says he needs to rest, she doggedly pursues the topic. What? What kind of spouse does that? I don't blame him for leaving either. In fact, I wish he'd never come back and then the book would be over.