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Announcing my first favorite read of Summer 2018! The Myth of Perpetual Summer, set in Mississippi, is a beautifully written story of family with tenderly drawn characters and filled with honest emotion.

My Thoughts:

The Myth of Perpetual Summer by Susan Crandall

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

5 southern family secret stars to The Myth of Perpetual Summer, my first favorite read of summer! 🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺

Set in Mississippi in the 1960s and 70s, Tallulah James’ story is memorable and haunting. Her parents have a tumultuous relationship sparked by a self-absorbed, yet bleeding-heart when it comes to social causes outside her own home, mother, and a father with an at times debilitating mental illness.

The town is always talking about the high profile Jameses, including lurid family secrets past and present. Tallulah, though not the oldest child, takes the helm of the ship when it comes to protecting her fragile family. Her right hand is her steadfast brother, Griff, and her left hand is her quintessentially southern paternal grandmother.

Explosive events cause Tallulah to leave her family behind, and the story actually opens with her return to Mississippi years later, once again trying to shoulder the responsibility of repairing and bolstering her family. The Myth of Perpetual Summer is then told through past and present chapters allowing the reader to get to know the James family, good, bad, and in between, loving and full of life.

Tallulah is head strong and morally convicted, and she has the most genuine love for each of her family members. In return, she is loved back by the likes of her older brother, Griff, who could not have been more nurturing and caring, her younger brother, Walden, innocent and yearning for his place, as well as, Dharma, her younger sister, a bit dramatic and self-absorbed like their mother. I also cannot forget Ross, Griff’s best friend, and Tallulah’s friend, too. What a love Ross is, and a true, faithful friend to this family.

The family is dysfunctional, yes, but there is much love and sacrifice for one another. Set on a backdrop of the major events of the time, the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war, The Myth of Perpetual Summer is a huggable book, one where a family’s secrets may be larger than life, but the thread of love that unites them may be enough to absolve their tragic past.

Thank you Susan Crandall, a most gifted storyteller, Gallery Books, and Netgalley for the complimentary copy. The Myth of Perpetual Summer will be published on June 19, 2018.
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Synopsis:

From the national bestselling author of Whistling Past the Graveyard comes a moving coming-of-age tale set in the tumultuous sixties that harkens to both Ordinary Grace and The Secret Life of Bees.

Tallulah James’s parents’ volatile relationship, erratic behavior, and hands-off approach to child rearing set tongues to wagging in their staid Mississippi town, complicating her already uncertain life. She takes the responsibility of shielding her family’s reputation and raising her younger twin siblings onto her youthful shoulders.

If not for the emotional constants of her older brother, Griff, and her old guard Southern grandmother, she would be lost. When betrayal and death arrive hand in hand, she takes to the road, headed to what turns out to be the not-so-promised land of Southern California. The dysfunction of her childhood still echoes throughout her scattered family, sending her brother on a disastrous path and drawing her home again. There she uncovers the secrets and lies that set her family on the road to destruction.

Have you read a favorite recently? Happy summer reading! ~ Jennifer THR