The Book of Summers
Emylia Hall

Reading a debut novel is sometimes like opening a new jar of coffee, an experience to be savoured, a promise of things to come.
The Book of Summers is Emylia Hall’s debut novel. The title gives little away other than a seasonal hint. But the book is a tale of growing up, coming of age, of wanting and getting and getting and not wanting.
It’s a colourful, vibrant narrative that contrasts a somewhat staid routine England with a Bohemian, natural Hungary. There are times when it seems that the writer is trying just that bit too hard to impress with imagery. There’s a simile too many here and there, the narrative would have worked as well without. But the story settles down into a more comfortable account of Beth and her seven summers.
I have to say that I did predict the event that caused the rift between Marika and Beth and where it would happen, Balaton. But that didn’t detract from a desire to see just how the characters dealt with the situation. But I felt that was too drawn out. And the sequence where ‘If things had been different’ precedes every paragraph becomes quite tedious because in a sense none of it needs to be said.
I liked the mirror prologue and epilogue where the same phrases and sentences were used, but with Marika in the prologue and Beth in the epilogue.
All in all a laudable effort and I would be happy to seek out more Of Emylia Hall’s future work. Genre? Not sure. Chick lit? Not really, it does go beyond that when it could so easily have stayed there.