Sunday 20 December 2015

❤ Summers With Juliette ❤ Emily Madden ❤




Almost twenty years ago, on a beautiful coastal cliff, Juliette Cole, Anne Kendall and Sera Di Maggio linked pinkies and made a vow to be there for each other no matter what might happen in their lives.

Now Juliette is calling in the promise -- terminally ill, she wants her two friends to come back to Ellesmere to help her through her last summer. The trouble is Anna and Sera haven't spoken in years, and Anna hasn't returned home since she and her mother were run out of town in disgrace.

But Anna and Sera do have one thing in common: they want Juliette to fight her cancer by any means possible. When they realise the only way may be to find a man called Noah, they reluctantly agree to put aside their differences and search for him.

But, as Anna and Sera discover, sometimes facing the past is the best way to face the future, and perhaps the only way they will find the strength for their last summer with Juliette





ARC received from Harlequin Australia for an honest review

I knew from reading the synopsis that Summers With Juliette was going to be an emotional read, so I was prepared for it.

What I wasnt prepared for was the for the punch that this book packed.

It is a gut wrenching, heart breaking but also heartwarming of friendship, and what lengths friends go to for each other.  It is about mending broken friendships, forging new relationships. 

Juliette calls on the pinky swear she, Sera and Anna made when they were teenagers.  She is dying and wants to spend one last summer with her best friends.

I loved Juliette from the minute the book started.  So strong, she has had so many horrible things happen in her life, but she lives her life every day with a smile.  I want to be as strong as her when I grow up!

Anna and Sera, each with their own problems but they come together for Juliette, and while they are repairing their friendship, they are forging life changing relationships with men they meet while in town.

From the blurb you know that there are going to be heartbreaking moments.  But boy the one that I knew was going to happen still took a strong grip on my heart and felt like it was squeezing the life out of me.

It is hard to believe that this is Ms Madden's debut novel.  The story, the writing, the emotion leapt off the pages, and I could not put Summers With Juliette down once I started.

This is a wonderful read, so grab a cuppa and a box of tissues and dive in. You will not be disappointed.

I cannot wait to see what Ms Madden has for us next.