Summerland: A Novel

by Elin Hilderbrand Narrated by Erin Bennett

Overview

The "queen of the summer novel" explores the power of community, family, and honesty-and proves that even from the ashes of sorrow new love can take flight (Kirkus Reviews).

A warm June evening, a local tradition: the students of Nantucket High have gathered for a bonfire on the beach. What begins as a graduation night celebration ends in tragedy after a horrible car crash leaves the driver, Penny Alistair, dead, and her twin brother in a coma. The other passengers, Penny's boyfriend, Jake, and her friend Demeter, are physically unhurt--but the emotional damage is overwhelming. Questions linger about what happened before Penny took the wheel.

As summer unfolds, startling truths are revealed about the survivors and their parents, the secrets kept, promises broken, and hearts betrayed.

Editorial Reviews

AUGUST 2012 - AudioFile

Narrator Erin Bennett is hindered by a plodding, lifeless story that tries the listener’s patience. Her flat delivery is well suited to the stilted, short, declarative sentences. She conveys no emotion as she recounts the aftermath of a graduation-night accident that left one student dead, one in a coma, and two emotionally scarred. The story meanders between the students and their parents, never breathing life into the characters. Repetition of events through the voices of the various characters becomes tedious since there’s no nuance to distinguish their unique perspectives. The simple writing style with its repetitive phrases may have been intended to build suspense, but you know the “secret” long before it’s disclosed, and you really don’t care. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2012 - AudioFile

Narrator Erin Bennett is hindered by a plodding, lifeless story that tries the listener’s patience. Her flat delivery is well suited to the stilted, short, declarative sentences. She conveys no emotion as she recounts the aftermath of a graduation-night accident that left one student dead, one in a coma, and two emotionally scarred. The story meanders between the students and their parents, never breathing life into the characters. Repetition of events through the voices of the various characters becomes tedious since there’s no nuance to distinguish their unique perspectives. The simple writing style with its repetitive phrases may have been intended to build suspense, but you know the “secret” long before it’s disclosed, and you really don’t care. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175482295
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	06/26/2012
Edition description:	Unabridged

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