Return to Summerhouse

Jude Deveraux

Edition	Mass Market Paperback
List Price	$7.99
	$7.99 (Save 0%)

Published by	Pocket
Release date	2008-06-17
ISBN	1416509739
Availability	Usually ships in 24 hours

With her shining gift for "exquisite and enchanting" (BookPage) storytelling, Jude Deveraux sweeps readers away in a breathtaking follow-up to her beloved New York Times bestseller, The Summerhouse -- where a marvelous new adventure awaits.

Magic most definitely resides in the Maine summerhouse where the mysterious Madame Zoya has granted the innermost wishes of its visitors. Now, three women have come to this special place with one thing in common: a painful past they would each like to rewrite. Amy, who hides a heartbreaking loss behind her seemingly perfect marriage and family...Faith, a widow in her thirties whose deepest grief is for a man from years ago...and Zoë, an artist shunned by her hometown for reasons she doesn't know, after a traumatic night erased her memory. With their mystical powers, Madame Zoya and her sister Primrose are about to transport the trio to eighteenth-century England to alter Amy's ancestry. But although surprises await each of them, will stepping back in time bring the women the happy endings they seek?

Customer Reviews - courtesy of Amazon.com ( Marked4Sale.com is not responsible for review content )

couldn't finish

i agree with "bunnieskill" reviewer. i just couldn't finish this book but skipped ahead. so glad i didn't buy this book, but got it from a friend. big disappointment.

Return to Summer house

Enjoyable, good read a little of the Montgomery times with the present.
Our preception of a situation, how strongly we attach and how it can influence episodes of our lives! Welcome back Jude!

Trouble in JudeLand

They say there are only so many stories to be told. Certainly in the romance genre, one expects an author as prolific as Jude Deveraux to return to the same well more than once.

Deveraux has set up CAMP next to the well, with a stand selling bottled well water.

Here are two things I wish she'd stop already:

1. Mystery plots. Deveraux is a romance novelist--period. She cannot construct a solid mystery, and the solution always involves some garbage she makes up in the end that no one ever could have surmised from the story. That's like playing Hangman where you make up your own words. She likes to drop coy mentions via her "writer" heroines about how novelists usually don't know what will happen to their characters ahead of time. Yeah, obviously, Jude.

2. Time travel. This really has not worked since "Knight in Shining Armor" and "Wishes," where the plot was linear. This convoluted mess where the heroine goes back in time and lives the reality of someone else who IS her, but ISN'T her, but may be RELATED to her, is a headache.

Does anyone else remember when her books actually had sex scenes? And whole plots about falling in love? That's what I want to read, and not this midlife crisis wish fulfillment that I suspect is the author practicing self-therapy. (A third thing I wish she'd stop is intrusively injecting herself into her books.)

Deveraux borrows liberally and shamelessly not only from her other books, but among storylines within the same series. Two of six heroines in Summerhouse nursed a chronically ill husband while being abused by his thankless parents. Three hooked up with men who were too rich to be an "appropriate" match. (Not just rich. Unbelievably, shockingly rich, with access to limitless funds.) Two played the obsessively devoted wife and mother. Most of them discover that they are talented--prodigiously so--in artistic endeavors they have never tried before, and for which there's no precedent.

The author does attempt to break the mold with the "Goth girl," Zoe, but then fails to flesh out the character and follow through. In fact, all of her characters talk and act the same way once she's introduced them by way of a few stereotypes. Occasionally she'll remind you of their archetype by having them bake muffins or something.

**Spoilers ahead.**

Then there are all the dropped plot threads. How did Amy resolve her personal tragedy that was introduced in Chapter One? Why didn't Faith and Zoe ever get business cards after the significance was underscored? (And couldn't Deveraux have been a little more...writerly about the complicity of Jeanne and Madame Zoya, instead of lobbing it at the reader in one contrived lump?) Madame Zoya's "rules for time travel" are all over the place, and Deveraux does a clumsy job of blending them into the dialogue.

Another reviewer mentioned that the characters tend to interrupt each others' stories and turn the subject to themselves. They sure do, and it makes them all annoying. Not *all* the exposition has to happen as a conversation over various lobster salads and blueberry desserts.

Here's what Jude Deveraux still does well: Picturesque descriptions of other time periods. Clothes, food, shopping, and decor, all of which appeal to women's fantasies. The woman who sweeps in and capably "fixes it all," winning her hero's adoration.

For those reasons, I probably could have forgiven her, until I read that trite stink-bomb of an ending. Once again she does a crash conclusion and crams 50 percent of the story into the final chapters, leaving the reader dazed and betrayed. How the hell did all THAT happen?

A good friend tells you what you need to hear, even when you don't want to hear it. So does a good editor, and Jude Deveraux needs one--that is, if she wants to be great again and not keep banking on her (decidedly) former glory.

Give us back to the Montgomerys and the historical romance formula. It's what made you.

Better than the first

I'm a huge fan of Jude Deveraux, I found the first novel "The Summerhouse" enjoyable, but I was floored with this novel. I personally love Time-Travel books and I feel that Deveraux does an exceptional job.
I like that in this novel they return to the 16th century. I like how she connects everything together, she did the same thing with her novel "Rememberance", which is by far my favorite of all her novels. So if you are looking for next great read, I recommend that you read this novel and "Remberance".

Delicious treat!

I really enjoyed this book. I tend to like Jude Deveraux's books, but I have admittedly only read a select few. That said, I really liked the time travel theme. This was a quick read - it took me less than a day to finish, but it was enjoyable and a delight. It had a great story with so many different elements - love, mystery, time travel, past lives, etc. Great book and reading Summerhouse is not required, but may give some background information. Wholeheartedly recommended for a beach read or just something to take you away from life and put a smile on your face.