NEW RELEASE
It Happened One Summer - Polly Williams (2011)
Nell became estranged from her family after her boyfriend Jeremy ditched her for her sister five years ago. Now she is about to venture on a summer that will change her and others' lives forever. Nell, a single mother of a four-year-old daughter, decides to take a chance when she is invited back to her family home in Cornwall. However, she is about to discover that she wasn't the only one invited and her mother, Valerie, has an ulterior motive. Jeremy and her sister Heather are about to get married and Valerie hasn't got long to live. This is an engaging novel about strained family ties and explosive secrets. (PP)
It Happened One Summer, by Polly Williams, is a story about about family dysfunctions, coming of age and forgiving your mother. The summary says: "Nell Stockdale is managing to combine a full-on media career with single motherhood. She's got a lovely London flat, great girlfriends, and has begun an affair with a sexy younger man. But there is bad news: her mother is very ill. Will Nell return to her family's large, damp Cornish farmhouse for the summer to care for her? Normally Nell keeps her family at arm's length. Her sister is engaged to Nell's ex-big love. There's the aspirational sister-in-law, the flaky brother, and the inescapable fact that she's never got on with her eccentric, distant mother." It Happened One Summer is out in January.