There really is nothing like reading a terrific summer book during the summer. I'm talking about books like GONE-AWAY LAKE, or THE PENDERWICKS, or ANY WHICH WALL - books that evoke the feeling of summer so strongly that you want to step through their pages and just live there.
(The summer is winding to a close date-wise, but it's been so horribly hot here in St. Louis that I can't envision it breaking anytime soon. That may be one reason the cover of SUMMER AT FORSAKEN LAKE appealed to me so much - I wanted to run off the end of the dock and jump in.)
Michael D. Beil is the author of the fabulous RED BLAZER GIRLS series, one of my favorite contemporary mystery series for girls (if not my very favorite - I reviewed book one
here and talked
here about how my blurb for the RBG got picked for the Summer Indie Next List back when I was an indie bookseller). I wasn't sure what to expect from Michael's venture out of mystery, but I was pretty sure I would love it.
I was right.
12-year-old Nicholas and his younger twin sisters are shipped off for the summer to the lakeside home of their father's uncle, who they've only met briefly. Nicholas's dad used to spend every summer at Forsaken Lake, but abruptly stopped going there at some point in his teenage years and never returned. When some strange things pop up in a hidden compartment - an unfinished movie; a mysterious notebook; a love letter written to their father - Nicholas finds a bit of a mystery to occupy himself. With the help of his new best friend Charlie, a girl who can throw a curveball like he's never seen before, he spends the summer trying to get to the bottom of his dad's abrupt summer departure. When he's not trying to figure everything out, he's learning to sail; riding a bike for the first time; overhauling a boat; and having the best summer of his life.
I love contemporary books with a nostalgic feel to them, and this one has that in spades. I've been calling it the "boy-friendly Penderwicks," although I've known boys who liked the Penderwicks and girls would like this book too and I hate being all gender-y but there you have it. I think this would make an excellent read-aloud, and that any reader who happens to stumble upon it would be pleased to spend some time sailing on Forsaken Lake with Nicholas and Charlie.
