Summerlong

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Buy on Amazon Buy on BN.com Buy on Bookshop.org
*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app

1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date 06 Sep 2016 | Archive Date 12 Dec 2016

Description

"A rare story of summer that feels like the summer—like dreamy intense passions rising and arcing and then spinning away; like beauty underlaid with a tinge of sadness because it is ephemeral.”
New York Times

Beloved author Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn) returns with this long-anticipated new novel, a beautifully bittersweet tale of passion, enchantment, and the nature of fate.

It was a typically unpleasant Puget Sound winter before the arrival of Lioness Lazos. An enigmatic young waitress with strange abilities, when the lovely Lioness comes to Gardner Island even the weather takes notice. And as an impossibly beautiful spring leads into a perfect summer, Lioness is drawn to a complicated family. She is taken in by two disenchanted lovers—dynamic Joanna Delvecchio and scholarly Abe Aronson — visited by Joanna’s previously unlucky-in-love daughter, Lily. With Lioness in their lives, they are suddenly compelled to explore their deepest dreams and desires.

Lioness grows more captivating as the days grow longer. Her new family thrives, even as they may be growing apart. But lingering in Lioness’s past is a dark secret — and even summer days must pass.

"A rare story of summer that feels like the summer—like dreamy intense passions rising and arcing and then spinning away; like beauty underlaid with a tinge of sadness because it is ephemeral.”
...


A Note From the Publisher

Peter S. Beagle is the best-selling author of The Last Unicorn, which has sold a reported five million copies since its initial publication in 1968. His other novels include A Fine & Private Place, The Innkeeper’s Song, and Tamsin. His short fiction has been collected in four volumes by Tachyon Publications, including The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche, The Line Between, We Never Talk About My Brother, and Sleight of Hand. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, Mythopoeic, and Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire awards and the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Peter S. Beagle is the best-selling author of The Last Unicorn, which has sold a reported five million copies since its initial publication in 1968. His other novels include A Fine & Private Place...


Advance Praise

-A Kirkus September 2016 Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Historical Fiction Book You Won't Want to Miss
-A Washington Post Best Science Fiction and Fantasy to Read in September
-A Verge Most Exciting Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Coming Out

“A rare story of summer that feels like the summer—like dreamy intense passions rising and arcing and then spinning away; like beauty underlaid with a tinge of sadness because it is ephemeral. Beagle has captured that seasonal warmth here, beautifully, magically.”
New York Times

“[STARRED REVIEW] Retired history professor Abe Aronson and his longtime lover, Joanna Delvecchio, encounter an enigmatic young beauty, Lioness Lazos, waitressing in a local diner. Abe offers her his old garage as a temporary home. From the moment she becomes part of their lives, changes—some miraculous, some devastating—begin affecting Abe and Joanna. Lioness’s presence inspires Abe to fulfill his cherished dream of playing second harmonica with a small jazz band and Joanna to learn the dicey sport of kayaking, even though she can’t swim. As their heady summer phases into early autumn, Lioness’s mysterious husband appears on the ferry from Seattle, bringing with him the chilly and inevitable resolution to Beagle’s strange and lovely lyric vision.”
Publishers Weekly

“Best-selling fantasy-author Beagle crafts a tantalizing picture of an atypical Pacific Northwestern couple whose lives are interrupted by myth and mystery. When Joanna and Abe meet a young waitress named Lioness, they are immediately drawn to her primavera aura and offer her a home in Abe’s garage. Life on Gardner Island blooms in an endless summer during Lioness’ stay. The couple’s lives and their relationship continue as usual until Lioness’ attempt to run from her past begins to unravel when her mother and husband arrive in town . . . Themes of love, loss, nurturing, and adapting are wrapped up in this deliberate and bittersweet tale of what it is to love in your own time, in your own way.”
Booklist

“In his first new novel in more than a decade, Beagle creates an intimate drama . . . A beautifully detailed fantasy."
Kirkus

“A quietly glowing and elegantly written revelation of the magic beneath everyday life.”
Chicago Tribune

“Beagle uses an ancient myth as a backdrop, creating a brilliant stage to explore the personal dynamic of Abe and Joanna’s vibrant yet deteriorating relationship.”
Washington Post

“An excellent story of love, relationships, and responsibility with much to think about after the last page is read.”
SF Revu

Summerlong is a delicate and interesting work of speculative fiction that should please old Beagle fans and win him a few new ones.”
LitReactor

“Peter S. Beagle’s latest novel is a bewitching, impossible-to-categorise masterpiece.”
Starburst

“By turns achingly beautiful and sober­ingly down-to-earth, it is a fantasy for those who have grown up with fantasy. . .”
Locus

Summerlong is an exercise in masterful, hopeful heartbreak.”
Green Man Review

“Beagle harnesses that long summer, that summer long, to tell a story steeped in myth and mystery, but with such fine portraits of its principles that its otherworldliness remains grounded and tactile. It’s a book that makes me shiver in anticipation of a winter that hasn’t quite come.”
Barnes & Noble.com Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Blog

“Beagle is a master of fairytale, deftly creating a gossamer magic on the page. Summerlong is a tale that merges classic myth with modern storytelling. Absolutely beautiful.”
Pop Culture Beast

“The world and people of Summerlong will linger in my memory for more than a season, leaving traces of beauty, wisdom, and heartache behind.”
The Emerald City

“If you like mythical fantasy, it is a wonderful treat. Even if that's not a genre you're familiar with, you'll struggle to find a more absorbing, beautiful novel this year. 5 out of 5 stars”
Bastian’s Book Reviews

“Peter Beagle's novel Summerlong is a lovely, tantalizing read that moves through a finely-detailed, familiar world into a tale as old and as urgent as language. Its strong-minded characters grab threads of the tale and try to pull it into wildly different directions, tangling passion, comedy, love, despair into a study of life on the B-flat harmonica, accompanied by a soundtrack of wind and waves, and, always, good smells from the kitchen.”
—Patricia A. McKillip, author of The Riddle-Master of Hed and Dreams of Distant Shores

"Peter S. Beagle’s Summerlong is a rare treat. It revels in texture and music and the ordinary pleasures of life, while the mythic sneaks up on you in tiny ripples and currents, building and growing until suddenly, you realized you’re submerged in it. An urban myth for adults, a book of joy and love and worn edges. And a book of magic, wondrous, tragic and unending."
—Kurt Busiek, author of Astro City and The Avengers

Summerlong is myth made flesh: a novel that makes real not just the force of gods and powers, but the hair's-breadth between them and fragile, mortal things—and how the transfigurations they visit can grace us, destroy us, and ultimately push us into blooming again. Soft, suffused with awe, and wryly, unflinchingly honest about the human heart, Summerlong is beautiful in its love for our messy complexity; for the first step into cold water, for the death that lets us grow again, and the ways we learn to love each other—and ourselves—wiser and better.”
—Leah Bobet, author of An Inheritance of Ashes and Above

“Like a warm summer afternoon, Peter S. Beagle’s upcoming novel, Summerlong, is charmingly quiet yet deeply thoughtful, with an ambiance that will keep readers spellbound to the final page . . . exceptional writing.”
Fantasy Faction

“One of the best literary speculative fiction novels of the year . . . a masterpiece of subtle storytelling that enchants you with its beauty and wistfulness.”
Risingshadow

Summerlong is charmingly quiet yet deeply thoughtful, with an ambience that will keep readers spellbound to the final page.”
The Quidnunc

“Peter S Beagle weaves myth and magic into a modern setting in a way which is truly magnificent.”
Life Has a Funny Way

“Absolutely worth the wait”
Pixelated Geek

“Romantic, bittersweet and heart-wrenching.”
Hindustan Times

“Beagle’s prose is as always, beautiful.”
Critical Writ

“Very, very beautiful”
Booklikes/Witty Little Knitter

“Beagle’s prose is undeniably brilliant.”
Nerds of Feather

“Reading this retelling of a classic evoked visceral feelings at summer’s turn. I highly recommend it!”
Penguin Girl

Praise for Peter S. Beagle

“One of my favorite writers.”
—Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time

“Peter S. Beagle illuminates with his own particular magic such commonplace matters as ghosts, unicorns, and werewolves. For years a loving readership has consulted him as an expert on those hearts’ reasons that reason does not know.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin, author of A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness

“The only contemporary to remind one of Tolkien.”
Booklist

“Peter S. Beagle is (in no particular order) a wonderful writer, a fine human being, and a bandit prince out to steal readers’ hearts.”
—Tad Williams, author of Tailchaser’s Song

“It’s a fully rounded region, this other world of Peter Beagle’s imagination.”
Kirkus

“[Beagle] has been compared, not unreasonably, with Lewis Carroll and J. R. R. Tolkien, but he stands squarely and triumphantly on his own feet.”
The Saturday Review

“Not only does Peter Beagle make his fantasy worlds come vividly, beautifully alive; he does it for the people who enter them.”
—Poul Anderson, author of The High Crusade

“Peter S. Beagle is the magician we all apprenticed ourselves to.”
—Lisa Goldstein, author of The Red Magician

“Peter S. Beagle would be one of the century’s great writers in any arena he chose.”
—Edward Bryant, author of Cinnabar

-A Kirkus September 2016 Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Historical Fiction Book You Won't Want to Miss
-A Washington Post Best Science Fiction and Fantasy to Read in September
-A Verge Most Exciting...


Marketing Plan

-Author tour and promotion at major trade and genre conventions to include BEA, Readercon, the International Convention for the Fantastic in the Arts, the World Science Fiction convention, and the World Fantasy Convention

-Features and reviews targeting literary and genre venues including the Washington Post, NPR, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle

-Planned book giveaways to include Goodreads, Tor.com, SF Signal, and additional online outlets

-Advertising in national print and online; promotion on author and publisher social media

-Author tour and promotion at major trade and genre conventions to include BEA, Readercon, the International Convention for the Fantastic in the Arts, the World Science Fiction convention, and the...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781616962449
PRICE $15.95 (USD)

Average rating from 167 members


Featured Reviews

I loved this book so much I am already planning to re-read it and give copies as Christmas gifts! It is vivid, stunningly evocative and breathtakingly heartbreaking. I loved how the magical / supernatural elements blend seem lesson with the everyday. It is the sort of novel that leaves stray images in its wake and makes readers believe that they, too, could meet a god in the local cafè. Sublime.

Was this review helpful?

I read this book in 2 days! It was a very enjoyable read and I had a hard time putting it down.

Was this review helpful?

Summerlong is a slowly building, highly atmospheric read set in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, on a commuter island near Seattle. There, retired historian Abe Aronson lives a pleasantly cantankerous life, joined regularly by his girlfriend Joanna, a stewardess nearing retirement. Together, they have a wonderfully sardonic, yet very comfortable relationship, which has grown very close over the twenty years that they have been not-married and not-officially-dating (but sleeping together nonetheless). It's rare to see such a curiously uncategorised couple in literature.

One day, they go to their usual local restaurant, where a new waitress catches their eye. Lioness is special. She has a classical look about her, as if she belongs into antiquity. Somehow she shines and draws everyone's attention without meaning to.

It is Joanna who offers her a chance to stay in Abe's garage when Lioness complains of the cold of her current bedsit. And so Abe gains a lodger who leaves an impression on him, Joanna, and Joanna's lesbian daughter, and who appears to be on the run from something vague and undefined.

The novel is richly evocative and atmospheric, slowly building a sense of the unreal from subtle beginnings to ever more archetypal, mythical proportions. It's full of detail that adds to the atmosphere, but lean and not bloated with a single unnecessary word. The human relationships, dialogue, habits - they are utterly authentic, as if taken from real life.

If you like mythical fantasy, it is a wonderful treat. Even if that's not a genre you're familiar with, you'll struggle to find a more absorbing, beautiful novel this year.

Was this review helpful?
Not set

A beautifully written allegorical tale set in the Pacific North West of the USA. Abe, a retired history professor who plays harmonica and writes his book has a long term relationship with Joanna Delvecchio, a senior airline stewardess, with four years to go to the end of her career, and with Jo's often troubled daughter, Lily, who has a series of failed lesbian relationships behind her. They've all been together for twenty years, though they each maintain a separate household, Lily and Del on the mainland, Abe on Gardner, one of the many islands in Puget Sound.

Life is predictable until the arrival of the unlikely sounding Lioness Lazos, a quiet but charismatic waitress at Abe's local diner. Whatever it is that causes Abe and Del to brefriend the newcomer spins its gentle effect wherever she treads. The island seems to be undergoing a perfect summer, flowers bloom where no flowers should be, orcas dance offshore and gradually the lives of three people are irrevocably changed. Who is Lioness and what, or who is she running from?

Saying more than that would give away the twist, but suffice it to say it's a retelling of a very old story. This is a gentle tale with a bittersweet ending - slightly more bitter than sweet.

I received this as an uncorrected proof review copy from Netgalley

Not set
Was this review helpful?

When I come back from Lyonnesse

With magic in my eyes,

All marked with mute surprise

My radiance rare and fathomless,

When I came back from Lyonnesse

With magic in my eyes!

-Thomas Hardy

Abe & Joanna are relaxing in a local restaurant they’ve been frequenting for years. They lead quiet little lives, in a quiet little town. They’ve been together for ages. Both are deep into middle age and for the most part satisfied with the life they live. Then a new waitress appears. She is quite simply magical. Abe quotes poetry when he sees her, and can’t stop saying “Primavera”, she inspires him to think of the painting by Botticelli. The girl is lovely, graceful and so different. Joanna is also drawn to her and driven by a desire to protect the girl they offer her a room in their garage.

Nothing is ever the same. She inspires change in everyone and everything she meets. Flora and Fauna. Children. Abe, Joanna and her daughter Lilly. Everything around her grows and flourishes.

This is a lovely, strange book. What happens when you enter into the world of myth and legends? You certainly can’t stay the way you were. You reach out. You try new things. It’s wonderful and terrible at the same time.

I read this book about a month ago, but I couldn’t write the review and I’m glad I didn’t. This requires a little thought. You need to steep in it. The writing is lyrical and descriptive.

“When she continued, her voice sounded like the rain ruffling softly at the window, driven by a wind from accross the world, “But some, a very few, come to the gods all on their own.”

The world shifts and changes. Ordinary things become otherworldly in an instant, and you get the feeling that it was always that way, we normal people just never saw it properly.

“They faced each other silently over the plastic bags, which in the freezing starlight semed to Lilly to be transofrming themselves into great, slow, cheese-green waves, poised to crush and drown her if she looked at them too directly. She said at last, quietly. “I do wish to say farewell.”

It’s a book full of visions and dreams. I didn’t appreciate it fully the first time I read it. From what I’ve heard, this is Mr. Beagle’s gift. He also wrote The Last Unicorn which has a reputation for loveliness and quality. I’ve never read it, but I really need to now.

Was this review helpful?

You can never go wrong with Peter S. Beagle. Always a lovely, entertaining read and this is no exception.

Was this review helpful?

Once is a while a person appears in your life and after knowing them, you realize you will never be the same. This is the story of "Summerlong", a story of relationships, and family divisions, and how when we least expect it, magic comes along and changes us. And when it's true magic, we are astonished, amazed and discover things about ourselves we never knew. And when that person leaves, we are left mourning our loss. I loved this book, and will recommend it to my library system for purchase.

Was this review helpful?

Peter S Beagle is one of my all-time favourite authors. Which is strange because he writes books I usually wouldn't be able to tolerate. I'm not a heavy fantasy reader, nor am I much of a fan of stories where slow character development is the central plot. Yet I own most of his books, and I haven't read a thing by him that I didn't adore. So if Beagle can get me on board with Summerlong, a meandering book about relationships, love, and loss, then I have to conclude that the book is pretty damn amazing.

My initial response to finishing Summerlong was to cry. Sob, really. My poor pillow, soaked in tears. Beagle's books are often about grief over the loss of important people in our lives, and human resilience after said loss. However, his books aren't full of the usual high energy dramas that one sees in bestsellers. Summerlong is such a normal story despite the presence of magical beings. It's about the realities of change and growth, and seeing things that sustained us come to an end. For every spring, there is always a winter. The world and our lives are not stagnant, and sometimes we let what we love go. In short, prepare for your heart to be lovingly shattered.

Many people have had quibbles with some of Summerlong, particularly with the character of Lily. However, even if I didn't understand why all the characters made the choices that they did, at no point did I question whether their actions were authentic to themselves. These were real people, at least as much as fictional ones can be, and everything they did felt natural to who they were. Sure, Lily in particular was hard for me to understand, but I think we would struggle to connect if she lived in the real world as well.

Summerlong is a gorgeous, heartrending, and utterly sublime book. Beagle's gift is to make magic out of stories where it seems like magic has no place, and to plumb the depths of human emotions. His prose is captivating, his characters like old, albeit frustrating friends, and his stories capture the pure beauty of existence, even when it hurts.

Was this review helpful?

I have not read any of Beagle’s other works, although I am a huge fan the movie version of “The last unicorn”. The tone of this book was bittersweet. I really felt like I was in the story and emotional vested in what happened to them.The character development of all the main characters was so realistic. Even though I am younger than Joanna and Abe, I can relate to the feelings of being stuck in life and someone new coming in and shaking that up. Lioness was intriguing and as the story goes on you want to know more about what secrets she is hiding and where she comes from. Lily is an unlikable character but she has to be for the story. Although I didn't agree with all her choices, its easy to see why she did. The ending was sad but necessary. I really enjoy how Beagle creates the setting and atmosphere. His writing stye is very unique and I enjoyed it immensely. This book is essentially about life changes and how they come wherever we are ready or not. A powerful read that Irate 5 stars out of 5 !

This review will be post on amazon.ca and Goodreads on September 30, 2016

Was this review helpful?

The Innkeeper's SongThere's no shortage of books that are modern retellings of old myths and legends. Summerlong is another one. With the small difference that it's not about the heroes of the myth. It's about the ordinary people they meet. And whose lives they screw up while they relive an age-old story. Now doesn't that sound cheerful?

It is hard to say much more about the book without spoiling too much. I needed to read more than half of it before I could even answer the question 'So what is this book about?' Before that...well things happened but I had no idea why or how those things were connected. But while in most other books, I would have yelled 'Just come to the point already' but Beagle has a way of writing that made me not care about the fact that I had no clue what was going on. (I was reminded of another book of his: The Innkeeper's Song which is also not exactly fast-paced and tight-packed with plot but Summerlong is even more extreme). It's not a book that can be easily shelved into any genre (Fantasy? Urban Fantasy? A love story? Magical realism?) and it's not going to appeal to you if you are looking for anything that fits easily in any of those categories.
It's also not a happy book (but not one without hope either). But it's still a very very beautiful one.

Was this review helpful?
Not set

This is a beautifully written, modern fairy tale. The relationship between the central characters is realistic and wonderfully normal even when surrounded by very abnormal things. The prose has an economy that I like and the plotting is streamlined, but in truth, this is a novel with very little story. The characters are the stars here and Beagle has constructed them with true skill.

Not set
Was this review helpful?
Not set

Summerlong is a perfect portrait of the Puget Sound islands, the interesting people who choose to live there and what happens when the islanders of today come in contact with myth and legend. Why would a middle aged woman suddenly take up open-water kayaking? Why would a whole family, father, mother and daughter fall in love with a strange young girl. If you've never been to the Washington State islands, or spent time in Seattle, you'll want to go, have coffee at Pike Market and scan the crowds for wayward gods.

Not set
Was this review helpful?
Not set

Love a good fantasy with adults in a long term relationships getting their world messed with appearance of an interesting stranger. Made me go back and read The Last Unicorn too. Happy to see Peter Beagle back!

Not set
Was this review helpful?

This is a quiet, dreamy sort of book, set on the Puget Sound, and very familiar to anyone who's been to the area. Almost from the get go, the style and prose of Summerlong reminded me of Guy Gavriel Kay, though the only book of his I could say this is similar to is Ysabel. However, the similarity persisted for the whole story.

It's hard to say much about the story without giving away the plot, and the plot of this book, distilled down to its essence, is the very, very old "a stranger comes to town" trope. In doing so, the lives of our two no-longer-young protagonists are upended. It makes for a very bittersweet story, with a lot of character growth and musings about the nature of love thrown in.

When so much about Beagle has recently been focused on legal issues, this is a triumphant return to his peak fiction form.

Was this review helpful?

Ahhhh, my soul rejoices at a new Beagle book. It's just as wonderful as I hoped.

Was this review helpful?
Not set

Beagle is a master of fairytale, deftly creating a gossamer magic on the page. Summerlong is a tale that merges classic myth with modern storytelling. Absolutely beautiful.

Not set
Was this review helpful?
Not set

Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review!

Love this stunning cover...and the story inside was just as beautiful! Nothing is quite the same for Abe and Joanna when Lioness enters their lives. Up until that point, middle-aged Abe & Joanna had been living a predictable and unremarkable existence as a comfortably unmarried couple, until the day that they met Lioness, a young waitress at a local diner. They are immediately drawn to the young woman and impulsively invite her to live in Abe's garage. From there, inexplicable things begin to happen and Abe & Joanna begin to wonder who this mysterious young woman is.

Beagle's writing is smooth and magical, and I was immediately drawn in. The characters are flawed and down-to-earth, in striking contrast to the ethereal and magical qualities of Lioness. You don't learn until the end of the book why Lioness possesses these otherworldly characteristics, so it is quite surprising to learn who/what she truly is at the end of the book.

I would recommend this to anyone who appreciates stories of magical realism with endearingly realistic characters.

Not set
Was this review helpful?
Not set

Peter S.. Beagle, the winner of the Locus, the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Myythopoeic awards, is best-known for his ’60s fantasy classic, The Last Unicorn. I also very much enjoyed his novella, Lila the Werewolf, and I See By My Outfit, a travel memoir of his cross-country motorcycle trip in the ’60s.

His strange new urban fantasy, Summerlong, a retelling of the Persephone myth, set in Seattle and on an island on Puget Sound, is about climate change: it explores fertility, flowerings, harvest, and death. He portrays a magical spring and summer, caused by a divine contretemps between Persephone and Hades. Persephone has left her husband Hades, is hiding out in Seattle, and is working as a waitress. As you can imagine, both Hades and her mother Demeter are searching for her.

But the gods are in the background, beings from another world. Beagle focuses on the human protagonists who mirror the gods: Abe, a retired history professor and a blues fan, and Joanna, a fiftysomething flight attendant who loves basketball and is tired of flight. The two have been lovers for decades. Abe lives in a house on Gardner Island while restless Joanna has an apartment in Seattle. Her dream? To go kayaking and camping, even though she cannot swim. She also worries about her daughter, Lily, a lesbian who makes bad decisions about relationships.
Botticelli's Primavera

Botticelli’s Primavera

One night, when Abe and Joanna are eating dinner at the Skyliner diner, Abe is struck by the resemblance of Lioness, their smart, savvy, beautiful waitress, to Botticelli’s Primavera. Before you know it, Abe has invited Lioness to move into his garage, and the beautiful spring on the island is magically extended into summer and fall, with flowers from all seasons blooming at the same time. Abe and the neighbors observe some odd scenes: Lioness talks to a lost baby orca; she also teaches the neighborhood children how to pick flowers from different seasons out of a hole in the earth. (Then she tells them they cannot.) Some wonder if she is a witch.

Abe and Joanna bloom, too. Abe begins to play harmonica with a blues group, and Joanna takes kayaking lessons. But Lily falls in love with Lioness, and Joanna meets Lioness’ mother at the market and a mysterious man who rides the ferry back and forth…

Here is a beautiful description of the magic climate.

"Even stranger than having their own exclusive climate was the fact that Joanna had no sense at all of the summer passing. Well into June and early July, the air still kept the soft green taste of April, and the constant smell of damp grass and earth, even when there had been no rain. The rain came as regularly as in Seattle, but on Gardner Island it fell at dawn, leaving the day glittering behind it, or in the night, steadily, but so lightly that the mist had all evaporated by morning. Leaves that should have begun to change color by now, and even to drop, showed no such inclination..."

This book is very slight but lovely. Occasionally Abe and Joanna’s encounters with the gods are jarring, but the blurring of boundaries between the triangle of gods and humans is very sophisticated. I think this is worth a second read. I am adding it to my collection of retold fairy tales and myths.

Not set
Was this review helpful?

In Summerlong, a mysterious young woman named Lioness appears on an island in the Pacific Northwest and enters the lives of middle-aged, long-term partners, Abe Aronson and Joanna Delvecchio, and Joanna’s adult daughter, Lily. As these three become increasingly aware of Lioness’s unique abilities and troubling past, their own lives become more tumultuous. When the havoc subsides, what will remain?
Based in Greek myth, Summerlong is Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series for adults and is equally compelling. Here, just as Abe, Joanna, and Lily become strangely mesmerized by Lioness, so too the reader becomes so drawn into this novel that it is impossible to put aside.

Was this review helpful?

Wow. I'm not sure I can do this book justice. Peter S Beagle still has the ability to entrap his audience. I loved The Last Unicorn as a kid and now that I am older, I love that he has written a book that makes me wistful.
There are a number of things I love about this book but my favorite is that the characters are in their twilight years. It's hard to find a fantasy novel that doesn't feature kids. I loved the humor and the truth in this book.
Peter S Beagle has a way of changing the way you look at the world and this book was no exception.
I don't know if this book would appeal to 20 somethings. Not sure it would have captivated me the same way in my youth but now that I am of a certain age (not quite as old as the characters), I have to say I really appreciated this book.

Was this review helpful?

Abe is a retired history professor living on Gardner Island. He has been attempting to write a book for years and loves to play the blues on his harmonica. Joanna lives in Seattle when she is not on the island with Abe. She is an airline attendant doing her best to avoid retirement and worrying about her adult daughter, Lily who seems to have a preternatural knack for finding the most unsuitable lovers. Abe and Joanna have a long-term relation that is, if not exciting, comfortable despite or perhaps because of their long periods of separation. It is a relationship sustained more by friendship and familiarity than by passion. They have learned to make compromises to make their relationship work: Abe limits the amount of time he plays his harmonica because it irritates Joanna and she keeps secret her yearning to go on a long kayaking trip despite having never kayaked because she knows Abe would worry especially when he learns that she wants to go alone.

When they meet Lioness, a new young waitress at their favourite diner who is looking for a warm place to stay, they offer her their garage But no one is more surprised than they at this offer. They are usually very careful about protecting their privacy but there is just something about this young woman. For one thing, her arrival on the island seems to coincide with an unusual period of seemingly endless summer.

But it soon becomes apparent that Lioness is hiding something in her past that will have an impact on the seeming idyllic life on Gardner Island. When this past finally catches up with her, she decides to break the impasse that exists in Abe’s and Joanna’s relationship. On the surface, her method seems cruel and completely out of character but is, in fact, a last gift. As in the myth that inspired this novel, as much as we may hate it, summer must end so that we can prepare for winter, and familiarity and peace in a relationship is not enough if it is purchased at the expense of our dreams; sometimes, like the bandaid on a cut, there is required a quick and painful yank to remove it so that the air can get in –the shock may be upsetting, there may be blood and it may hurt for a while but, eventually, it is clear that it was necessary if real healing is to occur.

Summerlong by author Peter S. Beagle is a beautiful tale mixing myth with reality written in the lyrical prose that is his trademark. It is a reminder that life is too short to spend it in a rut no matter how comfortable and that we need the seasons in our lives as much as we need them in the year. It is a story about taking risks, of letting go of the past to enjoy the future, that the end of summer is not the end of everything but rather a new beginning, a time to harvest what we have spent our spring and summer sowing. In many ways, it reminded me as much of Eccleastes 3:1-8 as it did mythology:

<i>To Everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven</i>

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and Tachyon Publications for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review</i>

Was this review helpful?

The Puget Sound setting and mythological overtones of Peter S. Beagle’s new novel, Summerlong, made it sound irresistible to me — and it turned out to be a lovely end-of-summer read. A long-term unmarried couple, one living in Seattle and the other across the water on Gardner Island, find their lives transformed in unexpected ways when they meet an enchanting but mysterious young waitress. Where does she come from, and what is she fleeing? Why does she have such a magical effect on everyone around her? As her secrets are slowly revealed, we find that nothing can ever be quite the same again.

I really appreciated how Beagle treated the theme of mature love and relationships, a subject not often approached in fantasy fiction these days. He’s brave enough to acknowledge that some hurts cannot easily be healed, that endings in life are often not as tidy as turning the last page of a book. I liked seeing the characters constantly evolve, as old routines die away and new capacities come to light — being retirement age doesn’t mean losing one’s capacity to learn and grow, after all.

I did find that I enjoyed the build-up of the story, characters, and the setting — which is very vividly and accurately evoked — more than the denouement. To me the mythological aspects were more effective when hinted at than when overtly referenced. Still, the world and people of Summerlong will linger in my memory for more than a season, leaving traces of beauty, wisdom, and heartache behind.

Was this review helpful?

5 (probably biased) stars--it was amazing.

Beagle is one of those authors that just speaks to me. I enjoy fantasy, which is his primary genre, but more than that, I love his writing. This is a short book (nearly a novella), and it might be too quirky or slow for some people, but I absolutely loved this little parable of a strange woman who shows up on an island in the Pacific Northwest.

Beagle is so good at description and mood. And his characters practically jump off the page.

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!

Was this review helpful?

I will read anything Peter S. Beagle writes. It's all so wonderfully magical.

Was this review helpful?

None of Peter S Beagle's books bear even the remotest resemblance to any of the others and yet I think you could always tell something was written by him because they each carry his signature style - fragile, lovely prose that manages to hold a tensile strength that is both unexpected and yet perfectly right, an unearthliness that is also the best kind of mundane. This is a beautiful book. A coming of age for those who thought their growing up was decades behind them. Without treading over old ground at all, it manages to convey a feeling found in The Last Unicorn and also in A Fine and Private Place while still being very much it's own thing. Beagle does write such interesting, vivid and 'human' female protagonists and he often does it best when they are not human at all. I really don't want to drop any spoilers so I won't go into the plot. Suffice to say that if you are looking for something literary yet speculative with a heart that is all too often missing from contemporary fantasy, look no further.

Was this review helpful?

Engrossing, fascinating, wonderful. I could not stop reading this book, started it and then stayed up all night to finish it!

Was this review helpful?

This was sweet, lovely, and Peter S. Beagle at his finest. 5/5

Was this review helpful?

This was a delightful book--I'm a suck for stories with medievalists (as I am one) and stories about how our relationships with stories change (and don't change) as we age. this was right up my alley, and while it wasn't flawless, it was a wonderful read.

Was this review helpful?

This book is everything you've ever come to expect from Peter Beagle. Stark beauty and whimisical magic in the most mundane of places. This is mythical fantasty brought to life in new and breathtaking ways, tilting your normal assumption and comforts of how mythology should done and put them into new hands, flushing new colors and drawing new glory from a brand new spellbinding way of treating them to a modern audience.

I was just as caught in the romance, deep and fleeting where it could be found, of this piece as I was moved, and broken, by its moments of compelling dispair. I agree with many reviewers that this book reaches gentle hands into your chest and before you realize it's gotten its claws around your heart and is holding on for dear life to itself and you until the tale can be told to its end.

Was this review helpful?

"Beloved author Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn) returns with this long-anticipated new novel, a beautifully bittersweet tale of passion, enchantment, and the nature of fate.

It was a typically unpleasant Puget Sound winter before the arrival of Lioness Lazos. An enigmatic young waitress with strange abilities, when the lovely Lioness comes to Gardner Island even the weather takes notice.

As an impossibly beautiful spring leads into a perfect summer, Lioness is drawn to a complicated family. She is taken in by two disenchanted lovers—dynamic Joanna Delvecchio and scholarly Abe Aronson — visited by Joanna’s previously unlucky-in-love daughter, Lily. With Lioness in their lives, they are suddenly compelled to explore their deepest dreams and desires.

Lioness grows more captivating as the days grow longer. Her new family thrives, even as they may be growing apart. But lingering in Lioness’s past is a dark secret — and even summer days must pass."

Firstly, that cover! Secondly, it's Peter S. Beagle people!

Was this review helpful?

A story of Summer that was too quickly gone. This was a memory dipped in nostalgia and spun in to words. TI was beautiful and created a sense of longing once gone.

Was this review helpful?
Not set

This is my first Beagle book and I liked it. The writing is very smooth and endearing. And I adore the main characters, which I think are quite unique since both are elderly, a 50something senior flight attendant and a 60something historian. Just the stories on their daily life is quite enchanting, supported by a great narrative about the location that feel alive. I normally hate long and frequent mention on the surrounding environment - river, sea, plants, soil, weather - but in this book, it becomes part of the story. The characters, Joanna and Abe, are definitely people you'd like to call your friends. They are nice people but with depths.

The plot is very simple. The main leads met a mysterious charismatic beautiful young woman who apparently running away from something. Halfway through the book my enjoyment was rather diminished since I guessed who she really was - many clues here and there - so, one possible (rating) star dropped. Sorry, I just love surprises. But then another star dropped when two lead characters did something that I think was quite out of the blue and out of character. And then the climactic ending felt a bit off as well - the scale and stake of the conflict should have given more impact and not too localized.

I think three stars for the writing is enough. I will definitely read his other works.

Not set
Was this review helpful?

Peter S. Beagle is my all-time favorite author and I will read EVERYTHING he writes. Summerlong did not disappoint and I think this novel will connect with a wide variety of readers, young, old and all in between.

Was this review helpful?

Readers who liked this book also liked: