SHATTERED SUMMER

by Madeleine Polland ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 26, 1970

High-minded seventeenth-century soap for the Ladies, being doubtless just a little too precieuse for the girls. . . in which James, Duke of Monmouth, is resurrected and rewritten across the pages of one Frances' somber melodic d'amour(s). At nineteen she's betrothed to Will, strong, sober, and sensitive--Will who'd be the eternal boy-next-door but for his age, thirty years; Will who was the only man in her sheltered life until his vital brother Jerem, twenty, visits Somerset. Frances is swept onto dawn horseback rides, herself ridden by a guilt that allows her to scorn Will's safe neutrality on the question of Monmouth's pretension to the throne, while worshipping Jerem's valiant commitment to that dashing uncertain heir who is also their friend. Many lovelorn war-torn traumas later wherein come our glimpses of that odd estate, the British gentry, Jerem is dead and Will is alive and very much redeemed. . . and Frances assembles the pieces of her shattering summer into a repatched work of womanhood. There's the history, sad but so stoically told. . . and the fingertip delicatesse of sentiment: all tears bittersweetened by having had and holding on--mellowdrama, in a word.

Pub Date: June 26, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1970

Categories: FICTION