Top Ten Tuesday: Book Titles That Include the Word *Summer*

 Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.  This week the theme is Book Titles That Include the Word (add the word of your choice – and I chose) Summer:

Deep Summer by Gwen Bristow (1937). When Judith is swept off her feet by handsome Philip Larne, an adventurer and slave trader, he builds her a beautiful plantation in Louisiana, where they raise a family, despite joys and sorrows along the way.  Bristow is focused on the development of Louisiana and the role all its people played, affluent whites, poor whites, and slaves, in this compelling historical novel.  My review. 

Six Degrees of Separation – from The Horse and His Boy to Ten Little Indians

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where it ends up. This month’s starting point is a wildcard, the book with which we finished December’s chain – mine was The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis.

Deep Summer by Gwen Bristow, for the #1937Club

Title: Deep Summer
Author: Gwen Bristow
Publication: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., hardcover, 1937
Genre: Historical fiction, late 18th century

Description: Fifteen-year-old Judith Sheramy is traveling by flatboat with her family from Connecticut to Louisiana where they have a royal grant to establish a homestead. When handsome Philip Larne, an adventurer from South Carolina, pulls up alongside on the Mississippi, the inexperienced girl is captivated, although her father and brother Caleb distrust him on sight.

Six Degrees of Separation – from What Are You Going Through to Dune Drive

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is Sigrid Nunez’s What Are You Going Through.

I am unfamiliar with Nunez's work but I know another Sigrid, so my first degree is the epic historical novel Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, set in 14th century Norway and written in 1920.

The Turncoat (Book Review)

Title: The Turncoat; Book One, Renegades of the Revolution
Author: Donna Thorland
Publication Information: NAL Trade Paperback, 2013
Genre: Historical Fiction, first in a series

Plot: 1977. Modest Kate Grey, a New Jersey Quaker who lives with her father and favors the Patriot cause, is confronted with the realities of war when her father joins General Washington and, hours later, Peter Tremayne, a British officer, and Redcoat soldiers invade her home. Kate is so mesmerized by the handsome stranger she is ready to throw virtue to the winds and while she bandies words with Peter, a mysterious widow, who turns out to be an accomplished spy, steals his papers (he is later court-martialed as a result). Peter and his men then flee from Rebel troops; the widow flees from his retribution to Washington, dragging Kate with her. When Kate, knowledgeable about military strategy from long talks with her father, realizes that Washington needs information about the British from General Howe, she offers to infiltrate Philadelphia Tory society and send secret reports back to help win the war. She does not expect to encounter Major Tremayne again, now that they are emphatically on opposing sides, but you won't be surprised to hear that he has survived his disgrace...

(I am afraid the Quakers are shaking their heads over the Grey family: the father is fighting with the Colonists and Kate gains a scandalous if mostly undeserved reputation.)