Briarwood Summer

 

    Jean Hampton is a 20-year-old librarian living in Briarwood, CA. She is engaged to 24-year-old Marc who has dreams of being a professional children's book illustrator however for the time being he is working at The Palms hotel which is owned and operated by his mother, Rose.

    Rose is controlling and has Marc wrapped around her finger. She despises Jean because Jean encourages Marc to pursue a career in art. Rose treats Jean poorly but Marc refuses to acknowledge it and thinks his mother is an angel. When a beautiful, barely-legal blonde named Bunnie applies for a job at The Palms, Rose hires her in an attempt to lead Marc astray from Jean. She creates errands and jobs that require the two to be alone together and they quickly grow close.

    When The Palms hosts a dance Jean attends it with Marc and there she meets 30-year-old James Massey. James Massey is infamous in Briarwood due to his wife Francesca's unexplained suicide over a year ago. Following the tragedy James had left town with his son, Robert, but had now returned to set up a stable life for the 5-year-old boy. The town loves to gossip about James, claiming he must have driven his beautiful, young wife to suicide. His going around with her former best friend, Althea, adds fuel to these rumors.

    Unbeknownst to Jean, James becomes infatuated with her after their meeting and he finds excuses to see her such as having her babysit his son or giving her a ride home from work. One excuse is by helping Jean secretly submit Marc's illustrations to a publishing company in New York. Jean borrows some of Marc's illustrations, claiming she wants to display them in the library but then Marc asks for them back because Bunnie has arranged a meeting with a retired publisher staying at the hotel. When Jean confesses what she has done with the illustrations Marc burst out in anger at her and the two do not speak for a week. Jean finds herself dreading having to talk to Marc again and realizes that she has no desire to be engaged to him, let alone marry him.

    Marc shows up at her house unannounced one night and tells her he wants to end their engagement and that he is in love with Bunnie. Jean gives him his ring back and rushes him out of the house, thankful and relieved that she never again has to deal with Marc, his unstable mood swings, or all his problems which she often had to handle for him.

    Learning of the break-up James feels he can now openly show interest in Jean but hesitates to do so due to his reputation around town and his own feelings of guilt surrounding Francesca. Three months before her death James had left his wife due to her desire to completely control him, her erratic mood swings, and increasing debauchery. He, along with the town, believe his leaving her is what drove her to take her own life.

    Unbeknownst to him is that Francesca had recently been diagnosed with a brain tumor and was not handling the diagnoses well. The only people she told were Althea and her pen-pal, Elnora, who is currently visiting Briarwood and blackmailing Althea.

    Althea, who is in love with James, has kept the reason for her best friends suicide a secret so James will stay rebuffed by Briarwood society and dependent on her. After Althea refuses to continue paying Elnora, James is told the truth and can finally move on from the past and begins to date Jean. Elnora is arrested for extortion and Marc and Bunnie elope to the fury of Rose.

- Francesca was clearly mentally ill so James saying he will only continue their marriage if she sees a psychiatrist was nice and surprising for the time this book was written.

- Marc is the epitome of the "men will do anything but go to therapy" meme.

- Everyone's exact age is mention and the author seems to be into younger women/older men age gaps. Francesca and Althea are older than James by 5 and 2 years and they're both portrayed unfavorably. They are written as awful, pathetic women who ruin a handsome mans life because they are so embarrassingly desperate to have him. Jean and Bunnie are 20 and 18 and are both portrayed as wonderful women who make men feel alive again. Even Bunnie who plots to steal Marc away from Jean, and succeeds, is considered angelic. Marc refers to Bunnie as a kid and Jean ponders that Marc might be attracted to Bunnie because she's childlike, yikes. The cliché of "man leaves evil 30+ woman for barely legal angelic girl" is very sexist and I was disappointed to see a female author use it.

- Sometimes I can't help but picture characters as actors and for this book I pictured Bunnie as Joi Lansing, Jean as Hope Lange, and Althea as Fredi Washington.

    Overall it was a good book about small town gossip. It had drama but in very relaxed way, not a way that's going to stress out the reader. It was a fun read.