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One Summer
K, a middle-aged painter, has returned from a hermit-like existence in Chile to attend the wedding of a girl he once loved to the point of obsession; but when he arrives at the English country church, it is empty, and the wedding has been postponed. He drives back to his hotel—a place he'd visited many years before—opens a bottle of champagne, and with it, a door to the past. When K first saw Claudia 15 years before, he fell instantly and dangerously in love—so much so that he managed to forget he had a wife and a life already full. He became consumed by Claudia, who was little more than a child then, 24 years his junior, and their love proved to be destructive and ultimately tragic. Years later, he now finds his old love is on the verge of a very different future, but the past, inevitably, awaits them both—and he is determined to take her back there.
312 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
4 people are currently reading
32 people want to read
About the author
Rachel Billington
61 books14 followersRachel Billington has written twenty one novels and eleven books for children. She is also a journalist, feature writer and reviewer. She is a regular contributor and Associate Editor of Inside Time, the national newspaper for prisoners and a Vice-President of English PEN. In 2012 she was awarded an OBE for Services to Literature.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 5, 2018
It took me a while to get into Rachel Billington's choppy, almost unreliable-narrator, writing style. And the way it kept flicking from 2004 to 1990, revealing tiny bits of the tragedy along the way. And the fact one of the main characters' names was just a letter. And that the other main character was only sixteen years old.
The story got a little lost about halfway through. What was pitched as a pure, I-could-never-leave-you tragic romance swiftly morphed into a man just cheating on his wife. Chapter twenty one was a turning point for me regarding my thoughts on K. I sympathised with him in the beginning, sure, but the more I learned about him, the more my dislike for the man grew. It's like he underwent a personality transplant. Gone were his almost-noble attempts to keep his "relationship" with Claudia chaste, almost in the blink of a couple of pages, and his thoughts turned exactly how you would imagine a lascivious old man's thoughts to be. At one point he thought of her as a "love object" and he actually called her a strumpet... as a compliment. It was completely at odds with the first half of the book. I feel as though the author wanted us to like K in the beginning, sympathise with him, and then tried to make us feel bad or uncomfortable for liking him by turning his thoughts dark and selfish. A clever concept, but I feel it didn't work well at all.
Equally at odds with the first half of the story, set in a quiet country garden in England, was the last third - set in India, Hong Kong, and then ending in Chile. The Chilean setting of Valparaiso was not so much a surprise and made sense since we're told from the get-go that K ran away to hide in Chile. But as much as I enjoyed the descriptions of India, I didn't care for Claudia's trips to India or Hong Kong after her reawakening, both added nothing to the story. I feel as though it lost the fateful, heart-rending tone set at the beginning of the book. Then frustratingly suddenly, during the last couple of chapters, the story picked up the same tone from the beginning to give a brilliant ending! I shed a tear or two, but not for Claudia or their lost love. More for the guilt K felt, his self-torture, his sense of his time ending. If it's one thing I can relate to, it is those particular set of emotions.
My intention was to give this book three stars, but the ending bumped it up to four stars. I will certainly be comparing this to Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov later in the year when I read it.
The story got a little lost about halfway through. What was pitched as a pure, I-could-never-leave-you tragic romance swiftly morphed into a man just cheating on his wife. Chapter twenty one was a turning point for me regarding my thoughts on K. I sympathised with him in the beginning, sure, but the more I learned about him, the more my dislike for the man grew. It's like he underwent a personality transplant. Gone were his almost-noble attempts to keep his "relationship" with Claudia chaste, almost in the blink of a couple of pages, and his thoughts turned exactly how you would imagine a lascivious old man's thoughts to be. At one point he thought of her as a "love object" and he actually called her a strumpet... as a compliment. It was completely at odds with the first half of the book. I feel as though the author wanted us to like K in the beginning, sympathise with him, and then tried to make us feel bad or uncomfortable for liking him by turning his thoughts dark and selfish. A clever concept, but I feel it didn't work well at all.
Equally at odds with the first half of the story, set in a quiet country garden in England, was the last third - set in India, Hong Kong, and then ending in Chile. The Chilean setting of Valparaiso was not so much a surprise and made sense since we're told from the get-go that K ran away to hide in Chile. But as much as I enjoyed the descriptions of India, I didn't care for Claudia's trips to India or Hong Kong after her reawakening, both added nothing to the story. I feel as though it lost the fateful, heart-rending tone set at the beginning of the book. Then frustratingly suddenly, during the last couple of chapters, the story picked up the same tone from the beginning to give a brilliant ending! I shed a tear or two, but not for Claudia or their lost love. More for the guilt K felt, his self-torture, his sense of his time ending. If it's one thing I can relate to, it is those particular set of emotions.
My intention was to give this book three stars, but the ending bumped it up to four stars. I will certainly be comparing this to Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov later in the year when I read it.
May 15, 2019
This book really got my back up but I wanted to persevere and find out what happened to the sad main characters. I read this book in a matter of a couple of days so it was gripping in an odd way. I can often be pleasantly surprised by books that basically tell you at the start more or less what is going to happen at the end without telling you the precise details. In this case, we know from the beginning that the liaison between the two characters ends in tragedy. It was, unfortunately just a bit of a cobbled together story.
Oh and so many mistakes! And not just spelling and editing which makes me twitch, although there were several of those. But what bothered me was on at least two occasions, the author mentioned the young girl, Claudia, wanting to get A* grades in her GCSEs in the parts of the story set in 1990. I'm sorry, but A* grades weren't introduced till 1994. There was very little factual research that was needed in this book as in most of it you are in some abstract country village outside of London anyway. But if you're going to set the story in the past and mention something like that more than once, do your research!
Overall I guess I remained quite hooked because I'm a sucker for angsty stories and forbidden romance (older guy with his problems, younger naive girl, tragedy) but no more than 3 stars just because it lacked care and I pretty much knew how thing were going to shape up anyway.
Oh and so many mistakes! And not just spelling and editing which makes me twitch, although there were several of those. But what bothered me was on at least two occasions, the author mentioned the young girl, Claudia, wanting to get A* grades in her GCSEs in the parts of the story set in 1990. I'm sorry, but A* grades weren't introduced till 1994. There was very little factual research that was needed in this book as in most of it you are in some abstract country village outside of London anyway. But if you're going to set the story in the past and mention something like that more than once, do your research!
Overall I guess I remained quite hooked because I'm a sucker for angsty stories and forbidden romance (older guy with his problems, younger naive girl, tragedy) but no more than 3 stars just because it lacked care and I pretty much knew how thing were going to shape up anyway.
October 20, 2025
uncomfortable reading that paints near child abuse as love. jumps around alot. but still fairly gripping
February 8, 2017
I found this book difficult to get into...and I felt unprepared that Claudia was just 16!
January 30, 2011
A brilliant book i couldn't put it down.
Written very much in the style of Vladamir Nabokov's Lolita, its a modern upto date version but is very powerful and moving.
The narrative style is clever just hinting at some things and revealing the whole sequence of events later, the characters are well thought out and portrayed and are described in such a way you can empathise with their feelings.
Well worth reading.
Written very much in the style of Vladamir Nabokov's Lolita, its a modern upto date version but is very powerful and moving.
The narrative style is clever just hinting at some things and revealing the whole sequence of events later, the characters are well thought out and portrayed and are described in such a way you can empathise with their feelings.
Well worth reading.
May 16, 2013
Sorry just couldnt get on with the style of writting just when I thought I had it it would confuse me
June 8, 2015
A dark and poetic romantic story. Beautifully written
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews