Customer Reviews

The Summerhouse

5 star:		(70)
4 star:		(41)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

This book has it all. Three women meet in a summerhouse in Maine for their fortieth birthday where they confront the past, only to secure a future that turns their worlds upside down.

Ellie, a famous writer, is trying to come to terms with a debilitating divorce. She is the instigator of the meeting. Madison is a bedraggled beauty queen never to be found without a cigarette in her mouth, her once glowing and dewy skin now gray and pale. Our third lady is Leslie, a wanna be dancer who trained and dreamed of the future as a young girl giving it all up for a family and station wagon in the suburbs.

Our ladies meet up with a strange woman on Everlasting Street who allows them to return to the past, how and why each of them does, is the stuff that books are made of. The results are cataclysmic to some and minor to others.

I love how this book played out. The author had several stories going at once all to lead to a grand conclusion. After reading Temptation I almost didn't pick this one up. I'm glad I did, it was an enjoyable summer read. Kelsana 7/9/01

Despite many of the mixed reviews I read here, I ordered this book anyway, and was very glad I did. I find Ms. Devereaux's work to be hit-and-miss, but overall enjoy her work quite a bit. This novel, however, was truly excellent. It helped me face my impending aging with the perspective that life is not over at 30, or 40, or 50, depite what many books, magazines and movies seem to tell us, and that we can start over or re-make our lives in whatever way we wish - even if we don't get to go back in time. These women were very rich creatures, had made mistakes as all of us do, and yet were given the opportunity to retrace their steps and right an ancient misstep - what a fantasy! I found Madison's story the most compelling and wished for more. This reminds me somewhat of Katherine Stone's work, in the development of such different stories at once, and I think we receive enough detail but each of these stories could easily fill its own book. Great read, you won't be able to stop turning the pages until you finish.

This isn't a normal read for me, but it was very good, It's a story about 3 women who met at the highway dept to renew their drivers licenses. About 20 years later, they re-unite to celebrate their shared birthdays and catch up on each others life events. During their reunion, they talk to Madam Zoya the futune teller/psychic who gives them a chance to go back into their life and change life's direction if they choose. Some choose to and some don't. It's interesting to watch lives take such different directions because of only 1 choice change.
This book will make the reader think about choices made and maybe choices not made and maybe choices wished were made.
The small amount of time travel was very interesting and imaginative.
It's a light read in my opinion with surprising twists til the very end. If you are a romance reader, this book will pull you right in.

At first I really liked this book. It reminded me of how Jude Deveraux used to write. There was some fantasy, some heartbreak, characters that you believed, but then I got to thinking about it after I was done.

The whole premise of the book (if you are to believe the blurb) is supposed to focus on what happens when these three ladies get a chance to correct that one big mistake they made which screwed up their lives. Well, that doesn't come until Part 3, which is about when 2/3 of the book is complete. The majority of the book is truely about what their lives are like now. So then there they are, back to the crucial three weeks, and Ms. Deveraux glosses over that part in about twenty pages or less for each of the three characters. I guess she decided that since she had devoted so much of the book to what their lives were like with their mistakes, it wasn't necessary to really go into detail about how those three weeks were spent. Instead the reader is left with a character suddenly getting involved with a murder mystery (the point of which I never did understand. There was really no place for it in the story) I felt cheated. I main reason I was really excited to read this book was because I liked the blurb. I thought it would be interesting to read how these three people would change their mistakes. Instead, I was given twenty pages that almost felt like an afterthought.

I would have loved to have given this book five stars. Originally I was thinking that Ms. Deveraux had gone back to her earlier style of writing which I loved. However, instead I'm left with a book that the more I think about it, the more ... unhappy I guess, I am with it. I wish she would have gone with only one character to have allowed for more development. I wish she would have more fully explored the characters that she did have. I really wish she would have written more about those three weeks instead of doing a rush job. Instead, I'm once again left hoping that her next book will be better than the last.

I read through the other reviews and the story is pretty well summed up in them. This book is so good - and represents a new, extremely welcome direction for Devereaux. Her last few books have held up my belief, that a writer can only write a limited number of truly great stories of a specific type (in her case, romance novels), before it's time to shift directions. With the Summerhouse, Devereaux remains focused on women's concerns in the romance department, but shifts the focus to women's inner lives, as well as their material situations after the romance has progressed beyond the first flushes of love. Don't you wonder what happens to the characters twenty years down the road? Yeah, this story is "fantasy," but for me it represents a much more realistic attention to women's real life concerns - the state of their marriages, their careers, their children, their own well-being, and not just lust-centered needs to be with a man. And how many of us wonder what would happen if we could go back and redo parts of our lives? This book combines that desire with characters who have real concerns, who deal with the same problems we all do. Maybe I'm just growing up with Devereaux's writing - all I can say is, with this book, that maturity is very welcome. Did I mention, the story is great, and keeps the reader turning the page to see what happens next? I could not put this book down.

Ever since I read "A Knight In Shining Armor" years ago, I have been a devoted fan of Jude Deveraux's books. This book is no different ~~ it's so good that I know that I will read it again. In fact, it seems that Jude writes better everytime she gets a new book out!!

A brief meeting between three women at NYC DMV center leads to a reunion 19 years later. The paths these three women took in life only led to sadness and pain for all three of them. They gave up their dreams and aspirations for the men in their lives and when they got together to celebrate their 40th birthday, they commisserated in their misery. Upon discovering Madame Zoya's business card, they decided that maybe they can go back into time and "fix" what went wrong in their lives ~~ a second chance to regain control over their lives. An opportunity that every one of wishes that we could have at one point in our lives.

And what the three ladies, Madison, Leslie and Ellie, have discovered surprised them. They thought they would "fix" things that went wrong in their lives ~~ only to be taught lessons themselves.

It makes for a great beach read or even a rainy day read ~~ let me warn you. You cannot just dump this book halfway through and pick it up days later. This book is so enticing and will grab your attention every chance it can get. =) So knock off a day just to read this book ~~ forget the laundry piling up or send the kids to a play date. This is one book that should be savored and read with a cup of hot tea and chocolate. As a reviewer in People magazine called a book somewhere in its reviews ~~ this book is eye candy. You won't regret an afternoon of pure escapism. Calgon should use Jude's books as their motto ~~ "Take me away" instead of bubble bath ~~ it's more efficient than bubbles!

5-13-02

How would you like to go back in time and correct past mistakes made in your life? That's exactly what these three women did in one of most interesting Jude Deveraux novels ever. Leslie, Madison and Ellie, three women who just turned 21 years of age meet at the DMV in NYC ready to conquer the world discover they not only share the same birthday but each is destined to meet again in the unforeseeable future.

Leslie once destined to become a famous dancer is now a wife and mother of two children who feels her family has taken her for granted and that her husband is cheating on her.

Ellie who had dreamed of being an artist but turned novelist in order to support herself and a husband who won't find a job. Ellie can't seem to get over the injustice done to her when she divorced this lazy man who has taken away her dreams and her money.

Madison a beauty with a good heart who ended up not going to college in order to take care of her sick mother. Her hometown finances her way to NY to become a model. Madison ends up marrying the man she loved but who dumped her for a "smarter" woman and who has now been injured in an auto accident but his cheap parents who won't pay for a nurse and gets Madison to rehabilitate Roger for free.

As each woman nears her 40th birthday, Ellie looks up the other two and suggests spending the weekend together and each discovers the lives they planned to live at 21 and the ones they attained at almost 40 are totally different. Each woman is miserable for totally different reasons and after an outing to a local restaurant each woman discovers a card which states " Futures Inc. Have your ever wanted to rewrite your past?, Madame Zoya can help". Well these ladies decide to visit Madame Zoya and that's when their lives take a definite turn. Would you go back to the past with the knowledge of the future in order to correct mistakes you had made? I wish it were possible but since it's not, enjoy this wonderful novel of three women who had the opportunity and did just that. Believe me you won't be able to put this novel down until you finish it, it was simply fantastic!

Jude Devereaux can tell a story. Who cares if the plot is somewhat implausible and if she doesn't quite tie up all the loose threads... The Summerhouse still is very entertaining and fun to read.

One day 3 beautiful but different girls all meet by chance at the DMV in New York City. They are all 21 years old and none are native New Yorkers. They bond quickly as they share stories and a birthday cake for a few hours in their lives.

Skip to their 40th birthday and one of the girls, who has in the meantime become a rich and famous author, decides to find these two other women to share her 40th birthday with. Of course, she finds them with no problem and of course, they decide to meet her in northern New England to get away from their lives for a few days.

As this book is somewhat of a time travel book, anyone who is used to that genre knows what will happen. The women are given a chance to relive 3 weeks of their life - and then decide if they want to change their life to the new one or stay with the old.

The book is fun to read and one that gets passed along just because you know your friends will like it too.

If you like books where the main characters get to relive the past, I highly recommend "This Body" by Laurel Doud.

The Summerhouse is a very light, easy read that reminded me of a modern day fairy tale. Three women Ellie, Madison & Leslie are, at age 40, pained and bitter about life. As they meet again for the first time since they were 21 they get a mystical chance to see what their life would have been like had they chosen different paths. This novel takes an interesting look at the "what if's" in life and how the choices we make in life so deeply affect us. It is not realistic, but I don't think it's supposed to be-but rather a creative way to explore the road not taken. The novel isn't too deep and the writing is light, but the subject is intriguing.

I had never read Jude Deveraux before - I'm not a big fan of the traditional "Romance Novels" which Ms. Deveraux is well-known for writing. This book, however, was not your typical "Romance Novel", but more a story of friendship with some love stories on the side. The characters are easily imaginable - I'm sure veryone has a friend like Madison, Ruby or Nora. This is the ideal book to read while laying on the beach - or sunning in your own backyard while the kids run wild. My only complaint about this book has nothing to do with the story, but as you get closer to the end of the book, some of the lines and descriptions are a little repetitious. It seemed that things should have been described once and the story continued, but the author describes a person or scene on one page and then 2-3 pages later, makes the same description about the same person or scene. Other than that, I loved the book and would read another one of Ms. Deveraux's books if it were written like this one - This book was more like the works of Nicholas Sparks or Luanne Rice - not Nora Roberts or Sandra Brown - and I liked that!!