Synopses & Reviews
From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Ann Brashares comes her first adult novel
In the town of Waterby on Fire Island, the rhythms and rituals of summer are sacrosanct: the ceremonial arrivals and departures by ferry; yacht club dinners with terrible food and breathtaking views; the virtual decree against shoes; and the generational parade of sandy, sun-bleached kids, running, swimming, squealing, and coming of age on the beach.
Set against this vivid backdrop, The Last Summer (of You and Me) is the enchanting, heartrending story of a beach-community friendship triangle and summertime romance among three young adults for whom summer and this place have meant everything. Sisters Riley and Alice, now in their twenties, have been returning to their parents modest beach house every summer for their entire lives. Petite, tenacious Riley is a tomboy and a lifeguard, always ready for a midnight swim, a gale-force sail, or a barefoot sprint down the beach. Beautiful Alice is lithe, gentle, a reader and a thinker, and worshipful of her older sister. And every summer growing up, in the big house that overshadowed their humble one, there was Paul, a friend as important to both girls as the place itself, who has now finally returned to the island after three years away. But his return marks a season of tremendous change, and when a simmering attraction, a serious illness, and a deep secret all collide, the three friends are launched into an unfamiliar adult world, a world from which their summer haven can no longer protect them.
Ann Brashares has won millions of fans with her blockbuster series, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, in which she so powerfully captured the emotional complexities of female friendship and young love. With The Last Summer (of You and Me), she moves on to introduce a new set of characters and adult relationships just as true, endearing, and unforgettable. With warmth, humor, and wisdom, Brashares makes us feel the excruciating joys and pangs of loveboth platonic and romantic. She reminds us of the strength and sting of friendship, the great ache of loss, and the complicated weight of family loyalty. Thoughtful, lyrical, and tremendously moving, The Last Summer (of You and Me) is a deeply felt celebration of summer and nostalgia for youth.
Review
A vivid elegy for youth...Brashares is wise as well as sentimental. She sagely remembers just how it feels to be young, lost, and in love.
The Last Summer (of You and Me) is a weeper: If you dont grow misty theres something a bit shifty about the state of your heart.
The Miami Herald
Natural, insightful, and affecting. A-.
Entertainment Weekly
Get out your handkerchiefs. A perfect summer novel.
The Vancouver Sun
The Last Summer is as much a treatise on loyalty and letting go of childish ways as it is on a summer of love.
USA Today
An unputdownable beach book calls for love, deceit, and sex. And The Last Summer (of You and Me)...has all those elements.
Cosmopolitan
Would do nicely under a beach umbrella.
The New York Times
Compelling...steeped in the familiar longings for lost time that readers seeking the carefree pleasure of a summer will enjoy.
Kim Edwards, The Washington Post
Ann Brasharess new book will delight all of her Traveling Pants fansnow grown-up and ready for this very adult novel of love, loss and the beauty of intense family bonds.
Anita Shreve, New York Times bestselling author of The Pilots Wife and A Wedding in December
Funny, deep and true, this one will keep you reading long after the sun has gone down.
Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of Big Stone Gap and Lucia, Lucia
Synopsis
From the "New York Times"-bestselling author of "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" comes a glorious novel of unrequited love, longing and the meaning of friendship (Adriana Trigiani, "New York Times"-bestselling author of the Big Stone Gap novels).
Synopsis
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants comes a glorious novel of unrequited love, longing and the meaning of friendship.( Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of Big Stone Gap and Lucia, LuciaRiley and Alice, two sisters now in their twenties, and as fiercely different as they are loyal, have spent every summer at their parents modest beach house on New Yorks Fire Island. Each year, they return to the house and community they have known since they were childrenand to Paul, the boy next door. But this summer marks a season of change: budding love and sexual interest, an illness, and a deep secret force all three to confront the increasing complexities of their lives and friendships.
Synopsis
From the author of the multimillion-copy, #1 bestselling series The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants comes a heartbreaking first adult novel.
Ann Brashares's series, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, has made her one of the most successful contemporary authors, shipping more than 8 million copies over the last five years and winning even more millions of passionate fans. Now, like Judy Blume (Summer Sisters) before her, Brashares turns her spectacular gifts to adult readers. In The Last Summer (of You and Me), Brashares uses her remarkable storytelling, emotional insights, and talent for capturing relationships to weave a rich, textured, mature novel that will resonate as clearly with readers in their forties as in their twenties.
Set on Long Island's Fire Island, The Last Summer (of You and Me) is an enchanting, heartrending page- turner about sisterhood, friendship, love, loss, and growing up. It is the story of a beach community friendship triangle-Riley and Alice, two sisters in their twenties, and Paul, the young man they've grown up with-and what happens one summer when budding love, sexual curiosity, a sudden serious illness, and a deep secret all collide, launching the friends into an adult world from which their summer haven can no longer protect them.
As wise, compelling, and endearing as her Traveling Pants series, and as lyrical, thoughtful, and moving as the best literary women's fiction, this novel is sure to win an entire new generation of adult fans.
Synopsis
A sparkling summer debut of love and reawakening that transports the classic The Enchanted April to a picture-perfect island in Maine Its a rainy summer in Park Slope, Brooklyn, when two unhappily married women, Lottie Wilkinson and Rose Arbuthnot, spot a tattered ad on their childrens preschool bulletin board:
Hopewell Cottage
Little Lost Island, Maine.
Old pretty cottage to rent
Spring water, blueberries, sea glass.
August.
Neither can afford it, but they are smitten. To share expenses, they find two companions: Caroline Dester, the exquisite darling of the independent movie scene, and elderly Beverly Fisher, who is recovering from heartbreaking loss. Transformed by the refreshing summer breezes, steamed lobsters, and cocktail hours on the wrap-around porch, the unlikely quartet gradually begin to open up to one another, and ultimately rediscover their capacity to love and be loved.
With a cast of quirky and endearing characters set against the beauty of an idyllic New England summer, Enchanted August brilliantly updates a beloved classic and offers readers a universal fantasy: one glorious summer month away from it all.
About the Author
Ann Brashares is the author of the phenomenal five-million-copies-selling series of young adult novels, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Second Summer of the Sisterhood, Girls In Pants, and Forever in Blue, and the New York Times bestselling adult novel The Last Summer (of You and Me) and the novel���My Name Is Memory.