One Summer
Heartfelt family drama from the internationally bestselling author
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3.9 • 55 Ratings
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
Tender and absorbing, One Summer by bestselling author David Baldacci is a beautiful portrait of a family rebuilding itself after being torn apart by grief.
When thirty-four-year-old ex-war veteran Jack Armstrong is told he has only weeks to live, his first concern is for his beloved wife Lizzie, and their children: baby Jackie, twelve-year-old would-be actor Cory and rebellious teenage daughter Mikki. It seems so cruel that an apparently fatal illness should claim him, a survivor of Afghanistan and Iraq, when he still has so much left to live for.
On Christmas Eve, as Jack prepares to say goodbye to his family, unthinkable tragedy strikes again and Lizzie is killed in a car accident. Just when Jack thought living was far harder than dying, and the children's future looked so bleak, something remarkable happens which gives Jack the valuable second chance he'd only dreamed of.
Unexpectedly, the family inherits Lizzie's beautiful childhood home on the oceanfront in South Carolina. During one unforgettable summer Jack and the children struggle to rebuild their lives. They learn to live again – and to love again. And they learn the biggest lesson of all – the importance of family.
Now an Original Movie on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries
'A good message and a big heart' – Washington Post
Praise for David Baldacci:
'Accomplished and amazing' – Daily Mail
'Baldacci is still peerless' – Sunday Times
'Baldacci delivers, every time' – Lisa Scottoline, author of Eternal
The 6.20 Man, the first instalment in the Travis Devine series, was an instant New York Times bestseller w/c 31/07/2024
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Legal thriller fixture Baldacci (Deliver Us from Evil) churns out a creaky, contrived family drama about Jack Armstrong, a terminally ill family man just praying to make it to Christmas. Sadness abounds, much more so when Jack's wife, Lizzie, is killed in a car wreck while on a medicine run. Plans are made by Jack's mean mother-in-law Bonnie: the three kids will get divided up among aunts and uncles across the country, and Jack will be put into hospice. Miraculously, Jack's health turns around, and he's able to reclaim his kids and move the brood from Ohio to the South Carolina shore where Lizzie grew up. There, he tries to reassemble the family and learn how to be a single parent, and just as they're beginning to settle into a functional family again, Bonnie sues for custody of the kids. Yes, it possesses all the subtlety of a dog fight, but it's also choked with pap ("No matter what you do, no matter how hard you fight, life sometimes just doesn't make sense") and so sappy you'd think Baldacci was earning a commission on each tear jerked.
Customer Reviews
Heart warming
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I could not put it down!
Are you sure....
This is a Baldacci? I am really struggling to finish this book- nowhere close to his usual brilliance and quite nauseating. Apologies but really sickly sweet