All Summer Long (Book Review)

Title: All Summer Long
Author: Dorothea Benton Frank
Publication: William Morrow hardcover, May 2016
Genre: Fiction

 

Plot: When glitzy New York interior designer Olivia Ritchie got married, she promised her professor husband they would one day retire to his home town of Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina. Now Nick, some 15 years older than Olivia, has retired and it is time for her to move, despite her poorly masked horror at leaving NYC. This drastic lifestyle change comes at a not inconvenient time for Olivia, whose business is going through a bad patch. She hopes that selling her New York condo and living modestly down south will help her and Nick recoup their fortunes. Olivia also has an extremely rich and needy client, Maritza Vasile; she spends most of the book zipping glamorously around the world with Maritza and her billionaire husband, and their marital issues cause Olivia to realize that money does not buy happiness.

Audience: Fans of commercial women’s fiction will enjoy this book. I was reminded of Elizabeth Adler and Eileen Goudge, although I had been expecting something more like Elin Hilderbrand and Nancy Thayer, who also write about families and relationships but in a less glitzy way than this book. Here is an interview with the author.

What I liked: All Summer Long was a fun, entertaining read, perfect for a big comfortable chair and a relaxing day. I grew fond of Olivia and her secrets and financial worries, and her affection for her sloppy husband. Although it was in her best interests to keep Maritza happy and eager to spend money, Olivia turns out to be genuinely fond of her rich, spoiled client, and gave both Maritza and her husband good, practical advice. The large cast of characters (including many bitchy women) added humor and dimension to the story which did not have much actual plot other than ‘money can’t buy me love,” but my favorite was Olivia’s hard working assistant Roni and I was glad she seemed to be getting a happy ending. And I do yearn for a trip to Charleston which I last visited in the seventh grade!

What I disliked: While I enjoyed this book, it was not at all what I expected and I got tired of all the designer name dropping. I thought it would be about Olivia’s and Nick’s slow but ultimately happy acclimation to Sullivan’s Island but they spent most of the book jet-setting with the Vasiles. Most of that wound up being diverting but I would have liked more about the famed Lowcountry of South Carolina and got very tired of their saying how much they loved each other all the time. Do people really do that? I wished they would make some local friends and I also disliked the dream Olivia has in Chapter 16 (I suspect this dream was to punish readers like me who were predicting such an outcome). 

Source: Thanks to TLC Book Tours and William Morrow for giving me a copy of this book in return for an honest review. You can visit other stops on Frank’s tour to see how they enjoyed the book or click below.

Tuesday, May 31st: A Tattered Copy
Wednesday, June 1st: A Chick Who Reads
Thursday, June 2nd: bookchickdi
Friday, June 3rd: Stranded in Chaos
Monday, June 6th: Seaside Book Nook
Tuesday, June 7th: Books and Bindings
Wednesday, June 8th: Tina Says…
Monday, June 13th: 5 Minutes For Books
Tuesday, June 14th: From the TBR Pile
Wednesday, June 15th: Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews
Monday, June 20th: Kritters Ramblings
Wednesday, June 22nd: Diary of a Stay at Home Mom
Thursday, June 23rd: A Soccer Mom’s Book Blog
Friday, June 24th: Queen of All She Reads