A Summer Remembered/Be Your Age, Dear (Storycuts)

Oct 11, 2024 10:30 PM

Author:Elvi Rhodes

In 'A Summer Remembered', as Laura is busy with the Christmas preparations, while looking after her children Richard and Millie, she can't help but wish she were back on their summer holiday in Normandy. When her husband presents her with her Christmas gift - a holiday to a destination of her choice, money no object - it is still Normandy she yearns for...but what secret is she hiding from her husband?

In 'Be Your Age, Dear', Chloe Patterson is lucky enough to not only have a daughter and a granddaughter around her, but also her own mother. But she battles with the dilemma of how she is perceived as a grandmother - and how she should be behaving as such - and how she really feels about herself deep down. Sometimes it seems that the older women in the family are the most free-willed and keen to have fun, and the younger seem the most responsible. As a local newspaper asks to write a feature on the four generations of women, tensions come to a head as these women finally realize who they really are...

Part of the Storycuts series, these two short stories were previously published in the collection Summer Promises and Other Stories.

Reviews

Watch out Catherine Cookson

—— Northern Echo

A mesmerising patchwork of horror, humour and humanity

—— Independent

A magnificent, poetic, colossal novel... Superbly written... It is, in every sense, a sublime book

—— Irish Times

His most serious and ambitious achievement to date

—— Times Literary Supplement

Pleasurable... Like Steinbeck, de Bernières deserves praise for his imaginative sympathy

—— Independent on Sunday

Shafak will challenge Paulo Coelho's dominance

—— The Independent

An honour killing is at the centre of this stunning novel... Exotic, evocative and utterly gripping

—— The Times

Lushly and memorably magic-realist... This is an extraordinarily skilfully crafted and ambitious narrative

—— The Independent

The book calls to mind The Color Purple in the fierceness of its engagement with male violence and its determination to see its characters to a better place. But Shafak is closer to Isabel Allende in spirit, confidence and charm. Her portrayal of Muslim cultures, both traditional and globalising, is as hopeful as it is politically sophisticated. This alone should gain her the world audience she has long deserved

—— The Guardian

In Honour, Shafak treats an important, absorbing subject in a fast-paced, internationally familiar style that will make it accessible to a wide readership

—— Sunday Times

Fascinating and gripping - a wonderful novel

—— Rosamund Lupton, author of Sister

Vivid storytelling... that explores the darkest aspects of faith and love

—— Sunday Telegraph

Moving, subtle and ultimately hopeful, Honour is further proof that Shafak is the most exciting Turkish novelist to reach western readers in years

—— Irish Times

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