One Summer in Savannah
A Novel
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4.5 • 177 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
“Nothing short of astonishing. The best writers are brave writers, and Harris has proven herself among those ranks.” —Mateo Askaripour, New York Times bestselling author of Black Buck
Coming home means risking everything she’s built and confronting everything she’s survived.
Eight years after surviving a sexual assault, Sara Lancaster has rebuilt her life far from her hometown of Savannah, Georgia. She pours herself into her poetry and her daughter, Alana: a precocious eight-year-old with a brilliant mind and a wild imagination. But when her father suffers a stroke, Sara has no choice but to return to the place that failed her and the people who never believed her story.
Back in Savannah, Sara steps into her father's shoes at his beloved indie bookstore and tries to maintain a low profile. Her only priority is to keep Alana safe—and hidden—from the Wyler family, whose powerful, well-respected son is serving time for Sara’s assault. What Sara doesn’t expect is to discover that Jacob Wyler—her attacker’s identical twin brother and once her teenage crush—has also returned to town, dealing with his own grief and shame. When the two reconnect, Sara and Jacob are drawn together by their shared losses, their love of language and science, and the ache of unresolved questions.
One Summer in Savannah is a powerful debut about confronting trauma, reclaiming agency, and discovering unexpected paths toward forgiveness.
“An unforgettable portrayal of familial tragedy, bravery, and redemption.” —Kim Michele Richardson, New York Times bestselling author of The Book Woman’s Daughter
Customer Reviews
Family at its best and worst
I could not put this one down. Very well written with a difficult story and characters that are flawed but figure it out in the end. This book showed me how poetry is a powerful tool for communicating. Highly recommend.
Love is the Catalyst for forgiveness
Our protagonist is mother of a precocious and highly intelligent 8 year old, who has a lot questions about her paternity, which mom is not prepared to answer. They live in Maine in the eastern most city in America, and they’ve just been summoned home to Georgia.
Sara, our protagonist, comes to Georgia because her father, who speaks in poetry and limericks, is dying.
Jacob, formerly David, our other protagonist, also has an ailing family member, his convicted rapist twin brother! (Yikes). The twin is as strikingly brilliant as the 8 year old Alana, and thus Jacob realizes Alana is the result of his actions that landed him in jail.
As Jacob connects with Alana academically, he and Sara develop and nurture their growing attraction for each other. Making an already difficult situation worse.
The book unravels slowly, and centers on forgiveness, asking readers is it possible to forgive any act or are some things unforgivable. My take on the author’s theory is all things are forgivable with love as the catalyst.
Page Turner
I loved the different views on family and situations. I couldn’t put it down. When I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about reading it.