She is taken in by two disenchanted lovers-dynamic Joanna Delvecchio and scholarly Abe Aronson - visited by Joanna's previously unlucky-in-love daughter, Lily. As an impossibly beautiful spring leads into a perfect summer, Lioness is drawn to a complicated family. An enigmatic young waitress with strange abilities, when the lovely Lioness comes to Gardner Island even the weather takes notice. It was a typically unpleasant Puget Sound winter before the arrival of Lioness Lazos.

Beagle (The Last Unicorn) returns with this long-anticipated new novel, a beautifully bittersweet tale of passion, enchantment, and the nature of fate. For inspiration.īonus Link: The Uffizi Museum’s page about Primavera – Nice information on the painting.Paperback. I’ll leave you with the picture of Primavera by Botticelli. I’ve never read it, but I really need to now. He also wrote The Last Unicorn which has a reputation for loveliness and quality. I didn’t appreciate it fully the first time I read it. “They faced each other silently over the plastic bags, which in the freezing starlight semed to Lilly to be transofrming themselves into great, slow, cheese-green waves, poised to crush and drown her if she looked at them too directly. Ordinary things become otherworldly in an instant, and you get the feeling that it was always that way, we normal people just never saw it properly. “When she continued, her voice sounded like the rain ruffling softly at the window, driven by a wind from accross the world, “But some, a very few, come to the gods all on their own.”

I read this book about a month ago, but I couldn’t write the review and I’m glad I didn’t. It’s wonderful and terrible at the same time. What happens when you enter into the world of myth and legends? You certainly can’t stay the way you were. Everything around her grows and flourishes. She inspires change in everyone and everything she meets.

Joanna is also drawn to her and driven by a desire to protect the girl they offer her a room in their garage. The girl is lovely, graceful and so different. Abe quotes poetry when he sees her, and can’t stop saying “Primavera”, she inspires him to think of the painting by Botticelli. Both are deep into middle age and for the most part satisfied with the life they live. They lead quiet little lives, in a quiet little town. Star Rating: – Wonderful! Everyone should read this book.ĭisclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in return for an un-biased review.Ībe & Joanna are relaxing in a local restaurant they’ve been frequenting for years.

Summerlong by Peter S. Beagle