Summerlong beckons with an alluring cover, and the synopsis hints at a scintillating story with mention of long-hidden dreams and desires, but the book fails to deliver. It's akin to a cocoon with its promise of beauty and wonder, but once it's cracked open, there's no butterfly to be found inside. The book follows an older couple who are inexplicably drawn to a young waitress named Lioness. The couple offers Lioness a rent-free room in the garage and spend the remainder of the novel pondering t...

This book was beautifully-written, but I don't think it was for me. Expectations come heavily into play here and I'd been under the impression that this was a far more magical fantasy novel than it actually was. For the most part, it reads like a character-driven contemporary about an old couple. When the fantasy aspects do arrive, they felt somewhat out of place. Kirkus calls the characters "compellingly ordinary" and they are indeed ordinary, and perhaps compellingly so for those who didn't ex...

Okay, this is a weird review to write. Peter S. Beagle is one of my favorite authors. The Innkeeper's Song and The Last Unicorn are two of my very favorite books. But this book...it's just not good. The characters aren't very well-developed, and they're stereotypes/cliches of a Jewish old man, a middle-aged Sicilian woman, and a tormented lesbian. The plot is not really a plot. Nothing really happens through most of the book, and what does happen is just stupid. I'm sorry. I wish there was a bet...

Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review!Love this stunning cover...and the story inside was just as beautiful! Nothing is quite the same for Abe and Joanna when Lioness enters their lives. Up until that point, middle-aged Abe & Joanna had been living a predictable and unremarkable existence as a comfortably unmarried couple, until the day that they met Lioness, a young waitress at a local diner. They are immediately drawn to the young woman and

3.75 StarsGardner Island is just a ferry ride away from Seattle, but it feels like another world altogether, especially during the Spring that retired professor, Abe, and girlfriend of too-many-to-count years, Joanna, decide to dine at a local eating spot. They’re sitting in this small room, checking out the other patrons and assorted people working there, including the musicians. Their waitress is new, they’ve never seen her before, and she seems more than out of place because she’s an unknown

Totally fun but I didn’t like the ending.

Peter S. Beagle has long been one of my favorite authors. It is not that I love everything he writes as much as I adore his word-smithing and his ability to evoke emotion. His strength, in other words, is not consistently in plotting. I love his short stories, and the novel The Folk of the Air remains my first–and possibly favorite–experience with urban fantasy (1986–take that, Ms. Anita Blake!). When reading Summerlong, I heard echoes from Folk of the Air, and of the two, I wholeheartedly prefe...

Both the feel and particulars of this book reminded me quite a lot of Patricia McKillip's more recent stories, where she explores a contemporary setting impinged upon by mythic elements. (If you liked 'Kingfisher,' or 'Mer,' don't miss this one!)It's also really a fantasy for older people. I feel like it probably would've resonated with me far more strongly if I were 20 years later in life, and I fear that younger readers probably won't enjoy it at all.Joanna and Abe are an older, long-term coup...

{{Digital arc gently provided by Netgalley and Tachyon Publications}}Primera impresión: Con visos de realismo mágico. De amores, veranitos de San Juan, y blues.----------------------------------------------A medium age couple in a going relationship for 22 years, he is a 66 y.o. retired historian living in Gardner Island (across Seattle) , she is a 55 y.o. flying attendant; both divorced, have their own homes but virtually rise together her daughter. Friends. Lovers. On a everyday laughts and fi...

This is my first Beagle book and I liked it. The writing is very smooth and endearing. And I adore the main characters, which I think are quite unique since both are elderly, a 50something senior flight attendant and a 60something historian. Just the stories on their daily life is quite enchanting, supported by a great narrative about the location that feel alive. I normally hate long and frequent mention on the surrounding environment - river, sea, plants, soil, weather - but in this book, it b...

2.5 out of 5 stars, rounded up for nostalgia's sake.Has there ever been an author that you loved, who just disappeared off the map for decades? If you’re a fantasy fan, the answer is probably yes. When that author reappears, as though revived from the dead, and releases a new novel after said silent decades, have you ever ran screaming to the store to buy it only to be disappointed? I have. Unfortunately, I feel like Peter S. Beagle let me down with Summerlong. Beagle never disappeared completel...

3.5 stars. Summerlong is Peter Beagle's first published novel in about a decade, and it has some wonderful aspects to it. Beagle writes so well that even when the pace was a bit too languid, I still enjoyed it. I loved the mix of mundane life in the Seattle area, which he describes so well that I could almost feel myself there, and the way that mythic fantasy (think ancient Greek gods) subtly sneaks into the story, just a mystifying detail here and there at first, then more and more until myth c...

5 (probably biased) stars--it was amazing.Beagle is one of those authors that just speaks to me. I enjoy fantasy, which is his primary genre, but more than that, I love his writing. This is a short book (nearly a novella), and it might be too quirky or slow for some people, but I absolutely loved this little parable of a strange woman who shows up on an island in the Pacific Northwest.Beagle is so good at description and mood. And his characters practically jump off the page. I received this rev...

2.5 Stars It's been a few days since I finished this story, and in that moment, I gave it a three star rating. The beginning was really good; if you like beautiful writing, but in the second part the story doesn't exactly evolve. There were situations that should have been more developed, namely the ones related with the magical realism aspect. Things that happened that felt strangely out of place and that left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Thing is, this is a quiet story that follows the...

Summerlong asks one of my favorite questions for fiction to explore: What happens when the mythic intersects with the mundane?It changes everything, or course.Abe is a retired professor working on a book of medieval history and Joanna is a stewardess nearing retirement. They have their relationship exactly how they want it—dating but not married, separate homes but Joanna practically lives at Abe’s, and a comfortably bickering dialog with one another but still a solid sex-life. While everything

**This is a fair and honest review written in exchange for a Netgalley advanced reader copy****Warning: spoilers** I'm not going to mince words on this one. I hated this book. To give it one star means I wouldn't recommend it to anyone and the only reason it received one star was because he does a great job writing about the beautiful island. The rest of the story is trash. Don't waste your time.Peter S. Beagle's new book, Summerlong, is set on a fictional (if not familiar) island just a ferry r...

This is a gentle and thoughtful book about the dissolution and formation of friendships, relationships, and the fascination of gods. What? Well, honestly, it's about a middle-aged couple and their mild and complicated relationship in a comfortable middle-class household, where she becomes disillusioned and he discovers a new love, and such things are mirrored interestingly with the inclusion and complicated immersion into a particularly well-beloved Greek Myth, walking the earth.The whole book i...

I only just read The Last Unicorn this past year, a book that enchanted me and my imagination. I was excited about this novel because the description and cover caught my attention. This was definitely a summer read because the season is central to the story.I don't want to give a lot away but this is an interesting blend of mythology and real-life, present-day settings and characters. This was a difficult combination, and the characters are just as bewildered as I was as a reader (this isn't a c...

My full review of this book is going up at Wired soon, but suffice to say that it's a marvelous look at what happens when people who have been just going through the motions for years suddenly wake up and start living their lives again. The supernatural stuff is brilliant, but the real strength is the characterization and the brilliant depiction of an older couple who have gotten used to each other but haven't ever really committed to each other.

A copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. No external considerations went into this review.In college, I flew to and from Portland, Oregon several times a year. I love flying, but I particularly love flying in over the Cascades and the Columbia River, seeing volcanoes out either window and the pine forest below, and looking west down the river as the plane turns for the final approach, knowing that the ocean is out there somewhere. Th...