It's almost
Christmas, but there is no joy in the house of terminally ill Jack and his
family. With only a short time left to live, he spends his last days preparing
to say goodbye to his devoted wife, Lizzie, and their three children.
Then, unthinkably,
tragedy strikes again: Lizzie is killed in a car accident. With no one able to
care for them, the children are separated from each other and sent to live with
family members around the country. Just when all seems lost, Jack begins to recover
in a miraculous turn of events. He rises from what should have been his
deathbed, determined to bring his fractured family back together.
Struggling to
rebuild their lives after Lizzie's death, he reunites everyone at Lizzie's
childhood home on the oceanfront in South Carolina. And there, over one
unforgettable summer, Jack will begin to learn to love again, and he and his
children will learn how to become a family once more.
Publishers Weekly's Review
Legal thriller
fixture Baldacci (Deliver Us from Evil) churns out a creaky, contrived family
drama about Jack Armstrong, a terminally ill family man just praying to make it
to Christmas. Sadness abounds, much more so when Jack's wife, Lizzie, is killed
in a car wreck while on a medicine run. Plans are made by Jack's mean
mother-in-law Bonnie: the three kids will get divided up among aunts and uncles
across the country, and Jack will be put into hospice. Miraculously, Jack's
health turns around, and he's able to reclaim his kids and move the brood from
Ohio to the South Carolina shore where Lizzie grew up. There, he tries to
reassemble the family and learn how to be a single parent, and just as they're
beginning to settle into a functional family again, Bonnie sues for custody of
the kids. Yes, it possesses all the subtlety of a dog fight, but it's also
choked with pap ("No matter what you do, no matter how hard you fight,
life sometimes just doesn't make sense") and so sappy you'd think Baldacci
was earning a commission on each tear jerked.
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Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (June 14,
2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446583146
ISBN-13: 978-0446583145
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.2 x 9 inches
PRAISES
"If you know
David Baldacci only as a thriller writer, you need to read more of David
Baldacci. In One Summer, he writes as
beautifully and insightfully about the pathways of the human heart as he does
about the corridors of power. The twists and turns in this hugely emotional and
unforgettable novel come from the resilience of one father's spirit and the
revelation of the love that binds a family, in this world and even beyond. If
you read one book this summer, make it One
Summer." (Lisa Scottoline, author of
Save Me )
"Just when you
think David Baldacci has a permanent bird's eye view of the Pentagon from Air
Force One, he surprises us all with a beautifully told story of the fate of a
family devastated by loss and healed by love. One
Summer has it all, humor, grace and redemption, delivered with humanity
and wisdom in the capable and sure hands of America's great storyteller."
(Adriana Trigiani, bestselling author of Very Valentine and Lucia, Lucia )
"One Summer is
a beautifully written story about family, redemption and hope. Baldacci
demonstrates why, regardless of genre, he's one of the world's foremost
storytellers." (Richard Paul Evans, #1
bestselling author of The
Walk and The Christmas Box )
REVIEW
Jack Armstrong is a
former army ranger married to his other half...a marriage meant to be, made in
heaven. Then he comes down with an unnamed fatal illness which will leave his
wife and 3 children alone.
David Baldacci
completes an artful and accurate description of what illness does to the whole
family. The story is told from Jack's viewpoint..."he couldn't make it
upstairs to his bedroom...It was another piece of his life taken from him, like
he was being dismantled, brick by brick. ". The story is heart rendering
and oh so true in its description of its` characters, in the thoughts of Jack,
the actions of his wife and his teenage daughter. The two younger sons really
do not have much depth in their part, but that does not hamper the story.
The family suffers
another horrendous tragedy and blow after blow. Jack has to struggle to rebuild
his life, his emotions and most of all his family. The bulk of the story takes
place at his wife's family beach house, where we see a family struggling with
the anger, the angst of the setbacks they are dealt.
This is a heart
wrenching story, but also one that proves the power of love and determination
and yes of miracles. It is for romantics and those who search for what life is
all about, what people can do and learn and how they can change their lives. It
shows the mistakes and tenderness that we all need to see and would find
absorbing to read about. This is a book, a good story with all the interesting
plot twists and turns of a mesmerizing summer read....Sometimes life doesn't
work out and then maybe it does.
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