Summer of '79
A Summer of '69 Story
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4.1 • 754 Ratings
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
Elin Hilderbrand's brief, irresistible postscript to her #1 New York Times bestselling novel Summer of '69. Catch up with Blair, Jessie, and Kirby Levin ten years after the summer everything changed. This "Summer of '69 story" by Elin Hilderbrand—which first appeared in print in the New York Times bestseller Reunion Beach, an anthology in tribute to the beloved novelist Dorothea Benton Frank—is now once again available in digital form.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
If, like us, you felt a tinge of sadness after finishing Elin Hilderbrand’s beachy historical romance Summer of ’69, here’s some good news: Summer of ’79 is a short, bittersweet novella that reconnects us with the Foleys and Levins. More of a devour-it-in-one-sitting flash-forward than a full-on sequel, the book sparkles with the same qualities that made us fall in love with this world: pop-culture nostalgia and razor-sharp humor. We love untangling the complicated but always believable webs of friendship, romance, and sex that Hilderbrand creates. And this story—set 10 years after the prequel, as the families reunite on Nantucket to grieve one of their own—only deepened our connection to her characters. Like a fading summer sunset or the last firework on the Fourth of July, the story’s touches of melancholy linger pleasantly.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hilderbrand (Winter in Paradise) delivers a superb novel about the goings-on of a family during the summer of 1969 in Nantucket, centered on four siblings. Mother Kate Levin has taken to drinking after her only son, Tiger, is drafted and sent to Vietnam. Kate has agreed to let her family's longtime caretaker Bill stay on their property with his grandson Pick in exchange for using Bill's army connections to keep Tiger safe and away from the front. Blair, the eldest sibling, pregnant with twins, gave up a promising career and a shot at Harvard at the behest of her astrophysicist husband, Angus, who is preoccupied with the upcoming moon landing and has deep spells of depression; Blair flees to Nantucket when Angus says he cheated on her. Middle sister Kirby is trying to clear her head on Martha's Vineyard after getting arrested for protesting and ending an affair with a married man. She finds herself judged by the family of the man she's now seeing, likely, she believes, because of their interracial relationship. Jessie, the youngest, gets a crush on Pick and hits puberty as she bears witness to how shame and propriety drive her family members, and how they suffer because of it. The sisters manage to slay their own demons while finding strength in their siblinghood. Hilderbrand hits all the right notes about life in a tightly knit family, and this crowd-pleaser is sure to satisfy both her fans and newcomers alike.
Customer Reviews
Summer of ‘79
This was a nice follow up to Summer of ‘69. It gave just enough insight to how the characters had evolved in ten years.
Disappointing
What the heck? Just when you get into it, it’s over.
Great continuation of the Summer of ‘69
Loved that this book picked up after the Summer of ‘69. I just wish it was longer! I loved catching up on the characters 10 years later and where they were in their lives. Would love to read a sequel.