Sandra Steffen, Come Summer

Come Summer

Sandra Steffen

Zebra, Apr 2004, $6.50, 320 pp.

ISBN: 082177557X

Liza Cassidy leaves California to close her family home in Nevada following the death of her mother. As she goes through things, she finds the autopsy of her twin sister Laurel dead five years from a brain tumor. Liza is stunned as Laurel apparently gave birth to a child.

Liza travels to Alcott, New Hampshire where Laurel spent her last happy days. There she confronts Laurel's beloved Jack McCall, sire of her nephew and meets little Tommy recovering from chemo due to cancer now in remission. As Liza and Jack exchange information about the beloved Laura, they fall in love. However, will they be able to overcome the ghost of her twin to find their own happiness even though she would have wanted that for two of the people she most loved in the world.

COME SUMMER is clearly a tear jerker with Laurel's death and Tommy's leukemia. However, readers will too easily categorize the novel that way for the tale is much more as the entertaining story line is a deep character study that looks inside the soul of the lead couple and indirectly Laurel. The key support cast, mostly his relatives and friend, but also her deceased mom and sister, provide depth as each one is unique so that the audience receive a strong drama that will touch the heartstrings of fans. This work is dynamite reading

Harriet Klausner