A Sum­mer in Europe

It’s been three years since I read this book, but I remem­ber it fond­ly, so obvi­ous­ly, it was mem­o­rable. At the time I reviewed it this way:

“This is a sim­ple sto­ry told in a won­der­ful and com­plex style. It’s long, but there isn’t an extra word any­where. The author, Mar­i­lyn Brant, leads the read­er in a jour­ney through Europe with Gwen­dolyn Reese and a group of Amer­i­can and British tourists. You know how you see descrip­tion of tourist spots and your eyes tend to jump, or glaze over? NOT in this book, because each descrip­tion is so ingrained with emo­tions that the very street (or canal) becomes an inte­gral piece of the sto­ry. Now, that’s writ­ing tal­ent! At the bot­tom, it’s a romance, but also a ‘com­ing-of-age’ (at thir­ty!). And def­i­nite­ly a sto­ry of adven­ture, mys­tery, every-day-life, age differences—but that’s what I brought to it. Maybe you will bring some­thing else.”

Okay, I loved this book. And so did almost all of those who reviewed it on Goodreads.

One of my favorite reviews starts this way: “Oh this book is like sit­ting in the sun in the mid­dle of a Roman piaz­za while eat­ing a big scoop of gela­to. It’s love­ly and some­thing to be savored. Just about the only thing I did­n’t like about this book is that Gwen got to go to Europe for a month and I did­n’t. Yeah, I’m pret­ty jeal­ous of this fic­tion­al char­ac­ter!”

I dis­cov­ered this review­er is Meg and she’s a book blog­ger. I had to look up her blog. It’s one I want to fol­low.

Anoth­er review by Mere­deth (anoth­er book blog­ger) starts this way: a”*yawns and stretch­es* Sor­ry, please excuse my sleepi­ness, I’ve just returned from a fan­tas­tic sojourn in Europe and I’m just a teen­sy bit jet-lagged…