I actually wanted to give this book three stars, because I didn't like how angry the hero was most of the time... but the truth of the matter is, he acted exactly like a guy would. And the book hooked me. I mean, really hooked me. In spite of the fact that there was a lot wrong with it.May is a wedding planner who dresses like crap and works out of a barn filled with owls and bats... yes, she stores gowns there. How. Stupid. I've had a barn full of bats - you don't put ANYTHING you like there, hello. She lives with her ancient great-aunt who ends up running the business, living alone half the year, and jet-setting to see May. Riiiiiight. May is drop-dead gorgeous but spends the entire book sitting around or eating ice cream. My butt spread just reading it.May's daughter (from a fling with a rich, married lawyer she didn't know was married, how cliche is that?) is 'gifted' - she sees the dead, and can talk with them. May thinks Kaylie is schitzophrenic, even after her predictions come true, she finds things that were hidden, etc. Wow, isn't May a keen, understanding heroine that you just want to love, already?One of the predictions was that a plane they were on was going to crash - also on the plane was the Boston hockey team. Kaylie leaves her seat to 'go to the bathroom' and asks Martin - the superstar, of the hockey world (of course) who is tall, also drop-dead gorgeous, and just happens to be single - to help her and her mother when the plane crashes. Ironically, Kaylie is the same age as his deceased daughter (who is floating over his head and told Kaylie about the crash... cuz dead people know the future, right?).WHY did I think I liked this book, again???Martin sees May, falls in insta-luv, they're married three weeks (or something) later. The rest of the book drags us from Canada (because uber-hunk Martin is French-Canadian with that sexy romance-novel accent, bien sur) to Boston (where he hates on hockey players and you spend 40% of the book reading about plays and people's faces getting bashed in) to Connecticut (where somehow May still runs her business 1/4 of the year). Wow... I'm having to drop stars off my review as I go!Martin also hates his father, who was a gambler and who he blames for his daughter's death (although he's as much to blame as his dad). He's pissy and demanding and irrational and craps all over May for big portions of the book, and then (as if there isn't enough literary tension), Martin's eyesight fails, and he can't win the Piston Cup. Er, Stanley Cup. Whatever, boo-hoo. So he tries to throw May and Kaylie and the bat guano away, but his dead daughter appears to him (because of course, if you can't see 'em when you have eyesight, you'll definitely see 'em when you're blind), and skates with him and he decides that life is for living (?!) and makes up with his dad, forgives himself, let's go of his daughter, reunites with his wife, makes up with his teammates, embraces the guano, and wins the Stanley Cup.The (happy, happy) end. I'm just glad they didn't have a miraculous cure to set like a cherry on top of this whole debacle... because I'm at the end of my review and have no more stars to remove. To think I stayed up til 1 am finishing this...
Une mère célibataire et un gros goon des Bruins de Boston tombent en amour, et on les suit à travers trois coupes Stanley. Le goon a un passé douloureux, une brouille avec son père (lequel fut aussi un joueur professionnel, mais croupit en prison suite à des malversations).Que demander de plus: sport et romance! Et de belles descriptions des Laurentides (région du lac Vert, quelqu'un connaît?)Martin Cartier, le gros goon est un Québécois d'origine (ce qui fait mettre quelque mots français dans le texte, mais pas de sacre!), il regrette sa petite fille disparue. Et come il se battait souvent sur la glace il perd graduellement la vue (avec toutes ses concussions), ce qui nuit dans les éliminatoires... (L'auteure a écrit le livre en 2000, j'imagine que les protecteurs faciaux n'étaient pas de mise alors?).Il y a un mélange de scène réalistes (les games de hockey des Bruins de Boston, et les scènes à l'hôpital) mais d'autres sont un tantinet guimauve et carrément fantastique: Kylie, la fille de May converse avec des anges, dont le fantôme de la petite fille disparue, laquelle a un message de réconciliation. Trop cuuuute, et c'est ce qui peut faire fuir les amateurs de hockey, hélas, d'où mes deux étoiles. Heureusement, la finale est plus réaliste, y a pas de miracle à la Walt Disney (fiou!), mais de très beaux moments de hockey en finale.Bref, un roman qui sent la Coupe...
What do You think about Summer Light (2002)?
I love this book. I've read it twice and am going to read it again as soon as my sister loans me the copy I gave HER for Christmas! She also loves it! It is a tearjerker, and we both found things we related to in it. I think it is my favorite Luanne Rice book and I love most of what I have read by her. I sent her a letter recently that I'd written when I read it while working for Colorado DOC. She responded that she would like to give some books to my library. So I sent her information for the Colorado prison libraries and hope that she is able to donate some to them now. Really....read it!!! :)
—Jeanne Linn
I didn’t find this book all that appealing. I expected less ghost talking and more fun summer times at the lake. Not a depressing book about a man with an anger issue, a wife that doesn’t know how to take it or when he says, “I hate my Dad and never want to see him again.” She just keeps pushing the envelope and ends up going to see a man that didn’t have enough money to pay his gambling debts, was a professional hockey player, bet against his own team, and had to a loan shark do carvings in his
—Lyndi
It's quite rare when Luanne Rice's stories take place anywhere else but along the New England coastline, and this is one of them. Set in Black Hall, Connecticut, Boston and Canada, the breathtaking surroundings take turns working their magic on a family that's healing from various degrees of loss. Ms. Rice always has me under her spell when she's passionately describing beautiful locations such as these, settings where the deepest love suddenly envelopes you and makes you believe that all things are possible. That, and I'm a sucker for romance, especially when the big tough guy falls for the good girl. And as she teaches us with every turn of the page, it's the things you can't see, when it comes to love and family, that matter most of all.
—Maria Miaoulis
