Abandoned by Booklikes

Eh, at least this was short. What a no-nothing story. I have pretty much loved every Pilcher book and to read this one and have it fall so short was a surprise. I think the main issue was that there was no development of any characters and you could call the story from beginning to end. It read like a not very interesting soap opera.

"The End of Summer" has Jane Marsh returning to her grandmother's home in Scotland called Elvie. Jane and her father left Scotland almost a decade ago. Jane knows that her grandmother wanted to keep her. And she wanted to stay too to live with her and her first cousin Sinclair. However, she felt a duty to follow her father and take care of him. Now that her father has a potential new love, Jane rushes home to Elvie and Sinclair. She soon feels torn between him and another love interest, her grandmother's lawyer, David.

Jane was a non-entity practically in this book. She is determined to stay with her father until he dares to fall for someone else. Then she leaves America with David to go back to her grandmother. And even though any person with eyes can see that Sinclair is not good, she stays blind to him and his ways. She doesn't seem to have a burning need to do anything but get married and have children. I wish she had felt passionate about something. The romance was really missing throughout this book and I am still annoyed I wasted my time on reading this. It read a lot to me like Christie and her whole bright young thing takes on terrible ass man in order to keep him on his ps and qs.

Dave and Sinclair were both cut from the same boring cloth. I really didn't care who Jane chose even though there is a whole information dump via a character for you to find out about a character who has kept things hidden (not really, just read between the lines).

Jane's grandmother was not portrayed as strong. I really had a lot of questions about decisions she makes, but we don't really get a chance to dwell on anything since the book is so short.

Jane's father is barely in this book and then shows up via letter that I thought was a cheat. There should have been more discussions between the two of them since he kept things from Jane and it also didn't make any sense to me as a reader.

The writing in this one doesn't sing to me like in previous Pilcher books. Scotland doesn't come alive and neither does Elvie. We get information dumps galore and nothing flows well because of that.

The setting of this book takes place I want to say in the 1970s. I say that because Sinclair makes a comment about the U.S. being full of anti-war protests. It doesn't feel like a book in the 70s because Jane seems to be anti-independent woman and having any thoughts of her own really.

The ending was lackluster. We have Jane with her choice at the end of summer (October) with her thoughts going towards the future.