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Snow In Summer is a ghostly paranormal tale that starts out with many things going for it – an unusual premise, a hunky ghost of a hero, and a heroine with some haunting secrets – but the writing style left me in such a state of utter confusion that attempting to finish it turned into an exercise in frustration. I reread several paragraphs three times and still did not comprehend what the author was attempting to say.
The story starts 400 years in the past when Christopher “Kit” Gallatin is accosted by a young scullery maid named Miranda who warns him of betrayal. Being a stubborn medieval man, he ignores her dire warning and minutes later is murdered.
Fast forward to the current day. Kit is now a ghost who cannot rest until he finds his heart. When Kit died his brother placed it in a box made out of the hilt of Kit’s sword. Kit’s tragic story has become somewhat of a legend and reproductions of these boxes sell like hotcakes at renaissance fairs. Kit’s shriveled up heart has eluded him over the centuries but he believes he’s finally located it in a shipment of the impostor boxes. He intends to grab it and get on with his ever after but meets Miranda Fairfield and falls in love instead.
Miranda has temporarily moved back to her hometown after losing her fiance and being placed on a forced medical leave from her teaching job. She’s selling the boxes as a favor for an old friend but likes them so much that she grabs one for herself and quickly proceeds to misplace it somewhere in the house she’s occupying. Guess whose box it was? Now poor Kit has to spend the rest of the book trying to find it. Rather than using his ghostly powers (which dwindle as he and the heroine become closer) he takes human form and rents a room from her so he can dig for it on the sly.
This book was difficult to get into from the start. The prologue was obscure and the setup confusing because too little information was given about the hero and heroine before all kinds of extraneous secondary characters and animals began popping up. Because of the abundance of characters and all of their little interruptions, the love story suffered greatly. I didn’t feel like the hero and heroine had any time to get to know each other, let alone fall head over heals in love. When the heroine makes her big I love you declaration, I was stunned and irritated because it didn’t ring true and there was no emotion behind it.
I was continually jolted out of the book because character motivations weren’t explained, people popped up and then disappeared, and most of the conversations didn’t make any sense. It appeared that big chunks of internal and external dialogue were left out of the book, making the story darn near impossible to follow. Also, word choice was often very strange. For example:
As her hand jerked up to cover her mouth, a hump of darkness dropped below the window frame. His tender feelings didn’t scatter, as he remembered her fingernails scoring his back, and the most marvelous words a man in rut can hear – Don’t stop.I could shrug off two or three of these weird word expressions but the book was filled with them.
Finally, there was a lame villain who wanted the box for his own greedy needs. His continued involvement in the heroine’s life made her come across as a brainless twit.
The initial concept of Snow In Summer was a good one but because there was no visible focus to the story it didn’t work on any level. The paranormal aspects were unstable, the suspense predictable and the romance sadly forgotten for chapters on end. Normally I love weird stories but unfortunately this one was too poorly written and out there even for me, and I just can’t recommend it.
Grade: F
Book Type:
Sensuality: Subtle
Review Date: 20/02/99
Publication Date: 1999
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.