The Summer Country (Maureen Pierce) - Softcover

Hetley, James A.

3.46

616 ratings by Goodreads

9780441012206: The Summer Country (Maureen Pierce)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0441012205 ISBN 13: 9780441012206

Publisher: Ace, 2004

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Growing up poor in Naskeag Falls, Maine, Maureen Pierce finds her life transformed forever by an encounter with Brian Albion, who claims that she has inherited a blood legacy with ties to the fantastical world of Merlin and Mordred. Reprint.

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Review:

Stuck in a dead-end convenience store job, young Maureen Pierce has no hope of a better life. She is crazy: she hears voices and sees visions no one else does, and she may not live past shift's end. Walking home alone through the wintry midnight, Maureen is attacked by a stranger. Her gun misfires. Then a second man appears, attacking her attacker--and Maureen must be going crazy again. For the newcomer looks sometimes like a modern man, and sometimes like a knight in shining mail--and he claims that both he and Maureen have the Old Blood of the Summer Country in their veins...

Readers weary of fantasy novels that reuse the same old faerie stereotypes will be happily surprised by James A. Hetley's strong, gritty debut novel The Summer Country. Hetley boldly reimagines the Celtic otherworld for modern times, and he doesn't forget the dark danger at the heart of the myth. --Cynthia Ward

From the Inside Flap:

"A well-written tale -- full of action, adventure, and deceit -- with an unusual heroine looking for her rightful place in the world."

--Anne Bishop, author of THE BLACK JEWELS trilogy

"You don't find many books like this, never mind first novels. Hetley's THE SUMMER COUNTRY is like an old Irish whiskey - dark and smoky, abounding in flavor and detail. For the jaded reader of Celtic fantasies such as I've become, bone-weary of all the pale and limpid novels that try to pass themselves off as the real thing, it's such a treat to find a book as strong as this. THE SUMMER COUNTRY is all the things a good novel should be: a tightly-written, resonant, single-volume story rich with flawed characters, dark visions, and quiet joys, with a whisper of true mystery, lying there in wait at the very heart of it all."

--Charles de Lint, World Fantasy Award-winning author of THE ONION GIRL

"A wonderful debut novel, by turns beautiful and utterly brutal. There's nothing soft and fuzzy about this fantasy land. Hetley gives us a raw, gritty world of hard edges and merciless determination, peopled by characters who live and strive with complete veracity regardless of which side of the mystical veil they hail from. His mix of 'real world' elements with the Celtic mythos is a delight."

--Lynn Flewelling, author of THE BONE DOLL'S TWIN

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