Summertime: A Novel - Hardcover

Barker, Raffaella

3.76

440 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375503870 ISBN 13: 9780375503870

Publisher: Random House, 2002

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For a year, Venetia Summers has been buffered from single motherhood by her boy-friend, David, but when work takes him to a Brazilian rain forest, things begin to unravel. Phone lines crackle, e-mails languish unanswered, and long-distance love proves to be a bewildering experience. Meanwhile, Venetia’s children and dogs run wilder than ever, brother Desmond’s outrageous wedding takes over her home, and her relationship with an eccentric new neighbor gets off to an unfortunate start. Still, there are the everyday rewards, not least among them the dazzling beauty of the changing Norfolk seasons.

How is Venetia to cope alone with an army-style camping holiday, a foul-mouthed Amazonian parrot, and the demanding, if endearing, personalities of three exuberant children? Her burgeoning fashion career, creating outlandish garments for a London boutique, provides much-needed diversion. But when a moonlit walk takes an unexpected turn, she finds herself with a real dilemma on her hands.

With Summertime, Raffaella Barker, whom Publishers Weekly called “a postmodern Erma Bombeck,” gives us another sparkling comedy of English rural life, sure to delight fans of her first novel, Hens Dancing, and new readers alike.

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From the Back Cover:

Praise for Hens Dancing

“Imagine Bridget Jones cooled out, married, the mother of three, living in the British countryside—and suddenly deserted by her husband. The result might be something like this breezy novel.”
—Us Weekly

“Charming...Barker keeps things wickedly off-kilter....[Her] caustic pen will endear her to grown-ups who like their women quick-witted and their fairy tales fractured.”
—Publishers Weekly

“[Hens Dancing has] the cozy charm of teatime Radio Four dispatches....It’s about a year in the life of Venetia Summers, the somewhat rudderless mum of...two boys...and a baby girl known as the Beauty. But this is no pastoral idyll of rosy-cheeked kids and cuddly pet rabbits; despite the Martha Stewart setting, Venetia’s life...is precarious at best.”
—Los Angeles Times

“Raffaella Barker endows her narrator with a keen sense of humor....[This] disarming portrait of country life almost makes you want to trade places with Venetia.”
—The Dallas Morning News

“Barker humorously explores the everyday trials of one woman trying to raise three children with little money but lots of love....Venetia is intelligent, funny, strong, and irreverent.”
—Booklist

“[A] delightfully down-to-earth story...Evocative prose makes this lighthearted romance a pleasure to read.”
—Kirkus Reviews

About the Author:

Raffaella Barker is the author of Hens Dancing. She contributes regularly to Country Life, The Daily Telegraph, and The Sunday Telegraph. She lives in Norfolk, England, with her husband and three children.

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