Black Dog Summer

by Miranda Sherry Narrated by Jilly Bond

Overview

In this extraordinary debut novel reminiscent of The Lovely Bonesand Little Bee, a mother watches from the afterlife as her teenage daughter recovers amidst the startling dysfunction of her extended family.



Compulsively readable and stylistically stunning, Black Dog Summerbegins with a murder, a farmstead massacre, in the South African bush. Thirty-eight-year-old Sally is but one of the victims. Her life brutally cut short, she narrates from her vantage point in the afterlife and watches as her sister, Adele, her brother-in-law and unrequited love Liam, her niece Bryony, and her teenage daughter, Gigi, begin to make sense of the tragedy.



A suspenseful drama focusing on marriage and fidelity, sisterhood, and the fractious bond between mothers and daughters, Black Dog Summerasks: In the wake of tragedy, where does all that dark energy linger? The youngest characters, Bryony and Gigi, cousins who are now brought together after Sally's murder, are forced into sharing a bedroom. Bryony becomes confused and frightened by the violent energy stirred up and awakened by the massacre, while Gigi is unable to see beyond her deep grief and guilt. But they are not the only ones aware of the lurking darkness. Next door lives Lesedi, a reluctant witchdoctor who hides her mystical connection with the dead behind the façade of their affluent Johannesburg suburb.



As Gigi finally begins to emerge from her grief, the fragile healing process is derailed when she receives some shattering news, and in a mistaken effort to protect her cousin, puts Bryony's life in imminent danger. Now Sally must find a way to prevent her daughter from making a mistake that could destroy the lives of all who are left behind.

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal - Audio

05/15/2015
Sally floats about freely after her death, which occurred during a massacre on the farmstead where she lived in rural South Africa. Slowly, she recounts her story as she watches her daughter, Gigi, struggle with grief, guilt, and relocating to live with Sally's sister Adele, Adele's husband, and their two children. Sharing a room with her cousin Bryony and attending school present huge challenges to the previously homeschooled Gigi, who has grown up in the bush. To complicate matters further, Gigi is aware that her mother suffered from unrequited love for her uncle Liam. In this suspenseful debut novel that is reminiscent of The Lovely Bones, Sherry thoughtfully explores relationships, especially mother-daughter and sister-sister, in postapartheid South Africa. Unfortunately, she only touches on the racial and economic problems that lead black men to kill farmstead owners with machetes and well-off white families to live in gated communities. Jilly Bond narrates in a clear voice that captures the poignancy and mystery of the story. VERDICT Recommended for listeners interested in a novel that blends suspense and horror with strained family bonds. ["The novel succeeds as a dysfunctional family drama, but despite being infused with mysticism…it ultimately fails to capture the complexity of South Africa's deep culture and traditions": LJ 2/1/15 review of the Atria hc.]—Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo

JUNE 2015 - AudioFile

Narrator Jilly Bond immediately draws the listener into this story, which is told by the ghost of a woman named Sally. Her tone is conversational, warm, and rambling as she attempts to make sense of her death—and why she’s trapped on earth, not heading toward the white light. Bond’s narration is breathy and intriguing. Sally says she has no choice but to pursue the story of why she remains among the living. Neither does the listener, under the spell of Jilly Bond's expert style. Bond juggles cadence, pitch, and pace to build the suspense at the heart of this story. She’s an excellent choice to voice the questions that drive the plot forward: Who killed Sally? And is her daughter safe? This is an excellent example of how audio can make for riveting fiction. M.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170041503
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	02/18/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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