Summer

By Edith Wharton,

Book cover of Summer

Book description

Bored with her life in a small town, eighteen-year-old Charity Royall enters into a relationship with an older man, only to find herself pregnant and abandoned when he reunites with his fiancée and leaves town.

One of two Edith Wharton novels set in New England, Summer examines the sexual awakening…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Summer as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I discovered Summer when I first moved to the Berkshires, and it quickly became my favorite of all Wharton’s novels. From the opening scene in which a playful June breeze whisks the hat off a young man, catching the attention of a local girl, I was captivated by this story of young love played out against a month of languid, sunny days filled with flowers, green grass, and leafy trees. But as summer edges into fall, the love story falters, giving way to a chilling encounter on The Mountain that has shadowed Wharton’s sensuously described landscape all along. 

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