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Summerstorm
They called themselves the Apollonians and they were dedicated to Art. They were also dedicated to whiskey and wild parties, and a life of total immorality.
Into their circle came Eugenia, innocent and trusting... until her husband, the leader of the group and the most amoral of them all, grew tired of her. One terrible night, when the wine and the women were tasted with equal abandon, Eugenia was knifed and dropped into the river, never to be seen or heard from again.
Or so the Apollonians thought. Eugenia survived -- survived in order to have her revenge. Poor Eugenia -- she devised a scheme so bold, so daring, so inescapably dangerous that it seemed as if she were plotting her own death. And indeed... she was.
Into their circle came Eugenia, innocent and trusting... until her husband, the leader of the group and the most amoral of them all, grew tired of her. One terrible night, when the wine and the women were tasted with equal abandon, Eugenia was knifed and dropped into the river, never to be seen or heard from again.
Or so the Apollonians thought. Eugenia survived -- survived in order to have her revenge. Poor Eugenia -- she devised a scheme so bold, so daring, so inescapably dangerous that it seemed as if she were plotting her own death. And indeed... she was.
314 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published July 1, 1979
141 people want to read
About the author
Anastasia Cleaver
2 books3 followersAnastasia Cleaver is a pseudonym for Elizabeth Jordan who also wrote as Natasha Peters.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 29, 2024
Revenge, culty libertines, madness, (possible) incest, secret identities, a seance, a traveling theatre troop, an asylum fire, a hot Scottish single dad, and
so
much Shakespeare-- what more could you want?
Buddy read with Nens
Add me on Instagram | StoryGraph | Fable | Threads
Buddy read with Nens
Add me on Instagram | StoryGraph | Fable | Threads
September 1, 2019
I had never heard of the Apollonians before, but I knew Apollo. I had dreamed of him. It all seemed so fitting, so right, too much of a coincidence to be anything but Destiny. What would it be like to live in such a world, I wondered. To dwell with gods, never to have to think about humdrum concerns or the petty crises of village life, but to live only for beauty?
...Natch, our narrator learns that these Capital-R-Romantic figures are built on nothing BUT petty crises & prettied-up ugliness. *fail horn*
SUMMERSTORM is an entertaining & strange gothic romance that centers around 19th-c bohemian art. Though the author calls them "Apollonians," the characters' antics, artistic manifestos, bohemian snobbery, & careless cruelty are obv based on the Pre-Raphaelites & their disciples; there's also a good bit of Byron & Shelley in Eugenia's tumultuous relationship with Oberon.
Overall, there's a lot crammed into this relatively short book. All the elements of a doorstopper Victorian sensation novel are here (unwise marriage, adultery, madhouses, near-death experiences, implied incest, disguises, revenge, plays-within-plays, social commentary, quietly long-suffering true love), albeit packed into 315 pages. TBH, I wish some parts had been more expansive (y'all know I'm a fan of those motifs :P), but the shorter length doesn't hurt the story. Nothing seems rushed; the characters are their own selves & the suspense continues to build throughout. I also liked the gender-swapping re: the narrator--she enters the story incognito as a male, then flashes back to her days as a lonely young wife before returning to the present & her vengeful, furious reveal for the Apollonians (which was great, btw--I really liked Eugenia & her biting 'tude).
My one significant complaint is the vagueness of Eugenia's lung problem--it seems that she's got TB, & at one point she claims to be dying, but then they downplay her condition as only needing some clean air & rest before she can be healthy again, though she's so stressed that she's literally coughing up blood in the final chapters. It was my understanding that once you started hacking blood things were getting serious. O.o So...that's a bit weird.
Otherwise, I quite liked it. :) The unusual set-up & WTF climax, the Shakespearean story (lots of oblique refs to The Bard throughout), the multi-layered Pre-Raphaelite imagery, the Victorian gothic...all good stuff. Strong 4 stars.
...Natch, our narrator learns that these Capital-R-Romantic figures are built on nothing BUT petty crises & prettied-up ugliness. *fail horn*
SUMMERSTORM is an entertaining & strange gothic romance that centers around 19th-c bohemian art. Though the author calls them "Apollonians," the characters' antics, artistic manifestos, bohemian snobbery, & careless cruelty are obv based on the Pre-Raphaelites & their disciples; there's also a good bit of Byron & Shelley in Eugenia's tumultuous relationship with Oberon.
Overall, there's a lot crammed into this relatively short book. All the elements of a doorstopper Victorian sensation novel are here (unwise marriage, adultery, madhouses, near-death experiences, implied incest, disguises, revenge, plays-within-plays, social commentary, quietly long-suffering true love), albeit packed into 315 pages. TBH, I wish some parts had been more expansive (y'all know I'm a fan of those motifs :P), but the shorter length doesn't hurt the story. Nothing seems rushed; the characters are their own selves & the suspense continues to build throughout. I also liked the gender-swapping re: the narrator--she enters the story incognito as a male, then flashes back to her days as a lonely young wife before returning to the present & her vengeful, furious reveal for the Apollonians (which was great, btw--I really liked Eugenia & her biting 'tude).
My one significant complaint is the vagueness of Eugenia's lung problem--it seems that she's got TB, & at one point she claims to be dying, but then they downplay her condition as only needing some clean air & rest before she can be healthy again, though she's so stressed that she's literally coughing up blood in the final chapters. It was my understanding that once you started hacking blood things were getting serious. O.o So...that's a bit weird.
Otherwise, I quite liked it. :) The unusual set-up & WTF climax, the Shakespearean story (lots of oblique refs to The Bard throughout), the multi-layered Pre-Raphaelite imagery, the Victorian gothic...all good stuff. Strong 4 stars.
November 25, 2019
“You are hiding something! Why else won’t you tell me the truth?”
“Because it’s more fun not to. The details of most lives are rather dull, I find. The ones we imagine are better.”
Summerstorm is a highly enjoyable gothic romance recommended to me by a GoodReads reviewer who called it “revenge fantasy for Lizzie [Siddal] fangirls” and no book blurb could better describe this fun whodunnit.
I recently finished Lucinda Hawksley’s biography about Lizzie Siddal, a model for the painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites, and it was clear Cleaver was inspired by this history in writing Summerstorm. I loved Summerstorm because of how Cleaver re-imagines the tempestuous relationship of Lizzie and Dante, and the Pre-Raphaelites through Eugenia, Oberon and the Appollonians.
I had read Hawskley's biography coming away with certain conclusions about Lizzie and Dante, but most of all, how Dante was, simply put, a charmer that used people. Nice enough and fun to be with, I guess, but not very loyal to anyone but his own selfish whims. This came across in Oberon - an inconsiderate man with wasted potential - popular and magnetic, but without morals or standards.
Sometimes I find romances overdo the villain so that they must be the devil incarnate, but honestly? Mundane faces of evil are just as effective. The Oberon Forresters and Barry Lyndons of the world are trash. I don't want to say Oberon is an inspirational villain because that's a weird way of putting it, but I enjoyed his character for this point.
At the start of the story, Eugenia/Adrian arrives at the Swallows, a secluded house in the English countryside where the Appollonians have holed up for in the summer, ostensibly to paint and do artsy things, but mostly to drink and act in bad plays. There are two timelines - Eugenia’s past and Eugenia’s present, and Eugenia narrates in first-person. I love a good first-person narrator in romance. I’ve only ever read them in gothic HRs such as in Teresa Denys, so I enjoyed Eugenia’s thoughts, particularly that of her unhappy relationship with Oberon, and about the Appollonians:
I thought of Apollonianism as something complicated and mystical and unreachable, when really it was nothing more than a longing for the things that children feel beautiful: knights and ladies, heros and dragons and pictures that tell a story. Theirs was a gaily decorated world filled with laughter and games and work that was really play, a world untouched by sorrow and pain and the weaknesses that beset grown men and corrupt them.
At a certain point, I enjoyed Eugenia’s flashbacks more than the present, but it is a short story with lots of things that happen… I had guessed who killed Eugenia and why after the first major clue, but there were enough red herrings that I switched my mind a few times before the end!
I don't read Gothics on a regular basis but I was engrossed in Summestorm. There wasn't much romance in this. There is a love interest but it really does not figure into the main thrust of the story, which is Eugenia's revenge.
“Because it’s more fun not to. The details of most lives are rather dull, I find. The ones we imagine are better.”
Summerstorm is a highly enjoyable gothic romance recommended to me by a GoodReads reviewer who called it “revenge fantasy for Lizzie [Siddal] fangirls” and no book blurb could better describe this fun whodunnit.
I recently finished Lucinda Hawksley’s biography about Lizzie Siddal, a model for the painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites, and it was clear Cleaver was inspired by this history in writing Summerstorm. I loved Summerstorm because of how Cleaver re-imagines the tempestuous relationship of Lizzie and Dante, and the Pre-Raphaelites through Eugenia, Oberon and the Appollonians.
I had read Hawskley's biography coming away with certain conclusions about Lizzie and Dante, but most of all, how Dante was, simply put, a charmer that used people. Nice enough and fun to be with, I guess, but not very loyal to anyone but his own selfish whims. This came across in Oberon - an inconsiderate man with wasted potential - popular and magnetic, but without morals or standards.
Sometimes I find romances overdo the villain so that they must be the devil incarnate, but honestly? Mundane faces of evil are just as effective. The Oberon Forresters and Barry Lyndons of the world are trash. I don't want to say Oberon is an inspirational villain because that's a weird way of putting it, but I enjoyed his character for this point.
At the start of the story, Eugenia/Adrian arrives at the Swallows, a secluded house in the English countryside where the Appollonians have holed up for in the summer, ostensibly to paint and do artsy things, but mostly to drink and act in bad plays. There are two timelines - Eugenia’s past and Eugenia’s present, and Eugenia narrates in first-person. I love a good first-person narrator in romance. I’ve only ever read them in gothic HRs such as in Teresa Denys, so I enjoyed Eugenia’s thoughts, particularly that of her unhappy relationship with Oberon, and about the Appollonians:
I thought of Apollonianism as something complicated and mystical and unreachable, when really it was nothing more than a longing for the things that children feel beautiful: knights and ladies, heros and dragons and pictures that tell a story. Theirs was a gaily decorated world filled with laughter and games and work that was really play, a world untouched by sorrow and pain and the weaknesses that beset grown men and corrupt them.
At a certain point, I enjoyed Eugenia’s flashbacks more than the present, but it is a short story with lots of things that happen… I had guessed who killed Eugenia and why after the first major clue, but there were enough red herrings that I switched my mind a few times before the end!
I don't read Gothics on a regular basis but I was engrossed in Summestorm. There wasn't much romance in this. There is a love interest but it really does not figure into the main thrust of the story, which is Eugenia's revenge.
Read
July 22, 2024It is truly impossible to star-rate this book, because it's maybe 3 stars for actual quality, 700 stars for the look on your interlocutor's face when you tell them "but it turns out his wife ISN'T dead, and she's back, in disguise and bent on revenge, despite the tuberculosis."
May 7, 2025
Easily one of the best gothic romance novels I've ever read. What made this even more of a fun read was that I got to buddy read it with Sarah. Seriously, what didn't I love about this? It's got a dynamic heroine who is slowly corrupted by the band of libertines she's married into. When her bond with one of them goes awry and she's left for dead, she decides to seek her revenge (and this isn't a spoiler, it's literally the blurb on the cover). The Apollonians are cold and cruel, like a troupe of theater kids from hell, and honestly-- this scratched THE SECRET HISTORY itch I've been longing to scratch for years.
I'm simply devastated that this isn't in print. It deserves a reissue because I think everyone should reread it. People who like sympathetic heroines, secret societies, dark academia, and the idea of tortured artists throwing themselves on the pyre of their art will eat this up.
I could say so much more but I don't want to spoil anything for potential readers. But what a keeper. Anastasia Cleaver/Natasha Peters never disappoints.
5 stars
I'm simply devastated that this isn't in print. It deserves a reissue because I think everyone should reread it. People who like sympathetic heroines, secret societies, dark academia, and the idea of tortured artists throwing themselves on the pyre of their art will eat this up.
I could say so much more but I don't want to spoil anything for potential readers. But what a keeper. Anastasia Cleaver/Natasha Peters never disappoints.
5 stars
June 26, 2025
I get so tired of people so determined to make artists come across as morally bankrupt, indulging in all kinds of vices, bordering on madness, etc. While there's no doubt quite a few had their emotional troubles, that doesn't mean it was an artistic epidemic! Plenty of other non-artists are certifiable, and let's face it, in today's society, bat crap crazy has become the rule!
Therefore, (and having known several artists, all perfectly sane) I resent this author, and the whole book! I was hoping the h would get killed at the end, no such luck! And I'd take her artist first husband over that boring second one of hers any day!
Therefore, (and having known several artists, all perfectly sane) I resent this author, and the whole book! I was hoping the h would get killed at the end, no such luck! And I'd take her artist first husband over that boring second one of hers any day!
Want to read
April 30, 2025Out of print - and all the used copies are so expensive. Need to see if I can find this in the wild somewhere.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews