It Happened One Summer

by Polly Williams

A funny, poignant page-turner about family dysfunctions, coming of age and forgiving your mother. And falling in love...Nell Stockdale is in a pretty good place, managing to combine a full-on career with single motherhood, a lovely flat, great girlfriends, and a sexy younger man on the scene. But her mother is very ill. Will she return to the family's large, damp Cornish farmhouse to care for her? Normally Nell keeps her family at arm's length. Her sister is engaged to Nell's ex big love, and she has never got on with her eccentric, distant mother. But something powerful is pulling her back to Cornwall...

Genres: Chick Lit, Fiction, Romance

405 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2010

Reviews

[Ze Winters · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very good writer, however the plot was largely about 2 main ladies with such pathetic self assurance and low esteem that it made it uncomfortable to read their inner thoughts. Just playing the victim, waiting for a man to save them. I actually love reading slop like "twilight" and can read it with ease, just for the fun of it. But this was just a sorry, sad case of disempowered women bitching about their perceived pathetic lives when nothing really that bad was going on.

[Donna Irwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this! I loved the characters and the storyline - and loved the ending.

[Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great one liners and an unexpected story

[Vivienne Hollis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really great book to get me back into reading fiction again. I just wanted something that was going to be a good little page turner for the start of Summer and it totally fits the bill! If you're looking for a book to take away with you on holiday whilst you relax with some cocktails this would probably be a great choice. The author has done a great job at describing the characters and the writing style is very witty throughout. It's a really easy novel to get drawn into, quite quickly - in my opinion. Won't give any spoilers, but I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish.

[Tricia Dillon Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

If family dysfunction were a novel. Oh, wait! Fun read. Nell, a journalist and single mom, has just lost her job as her siblings look to find someone to care for their mother. She packs up her young daughter and leaves London for Cornwall. The only issue? Her mom is impossible and her sister is engage to her ex boyfriend. Great read.

[clair Keller · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started alright but in the second chapter another person came it did not tell you who it was and what connection she had with the main characters in the book until the end .
I thought it was a bit strange at first

[Michaela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinda boring but I did love the ending.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very nice

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars ⭐ Took a bit to get into it, but the second half was good, the end was sweet. Be persistent!!

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the sense of tension that the plot of this book created. It gave me a sense of urgency to finish it to find out what happens

[Barbara Jamieson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good read thoroughly enjoyed it

[Vanessa Palmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was an enjoyable read, although a bit predictable and slow in the beginning.

[Melissa Keen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fun summer read!

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nell Stockdale is juggling single-motherhood, a busy career and a fling with a sexy younger man when the call comes to return to the childhood home, Tredower, in Cornwall to look after her mother for the summer. Resistance is futile, especially after she is made redundant, so Nell heads off to deepest, rural Cornwall with daughter Cass in tow. Not only has Nell to contend with Cornish weather and her mother's barbed comments, she has to cope with the imminent visit from her older brother, his perfect wife and eccentric twin sons and, what's worse, her younger sister and future brother in law - the man who used to be her lover! As if that's not complicated enough, her mother has decided to hold a kind of competition between the siblings to see who should inherit Tredower once she meets her demise!

As the dysfunctional family gets together over the summer and memories surface, each one has to face up to the past and make important decisions about the future.

Polly Williams has hit on the perfect combination for a fun but thoughtful read with this novel. Her characters are likeable, larger than life with the flaws and quirks recognisable from real life and the circumstances they find themselves in are all too easily imagined. She encapsulates the quirky but dysfunctional family with aplomb, making you alternately want to meet and avoid them! A book that is fun and easy to read but has a serious side that gets to the heart of the matter making it a very enjoyable and authentic read.

[Jacki (Julia Flyte) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a lightweight summery story, about a woman who goes back to Cornwall for the summer to look after her aged Mum. Nell is a single mother who's always been very career focused. Nor is she terribly close to her family - brother Ethan and sister Heather (who is engaged to Nell's ex boyfriend). But there's a lot of change for all of them in store, as secrets come unravelled and priorities change over the summer.

I really liked the way that the book made me feel like I was hanging out in Cornwall, smelling the salty air. I also liked the way that Polly Williams captures family dynamics in a warm and realistic way. There are a lot of twists in the story and from reading the other reviews, it seems a large part of how much you like this book will come down to how far in advance you figure them out. Initially I found the plot quite intriguing, but then I guessed where it was going and from that point I felt that it unfolded in a fairly predictable and dragged out way, which affects my ranking of it. Other readers won't necessarily agree.

At the risk of sounding like a prim old lady, the other thing I disliked about the book was sentences like this: "Three days later...every bedroom had been farted in, every toilet seat peed on." I felt there were some sentences that had been written in an unnecessarily frank way, and I didn't care for that. Yes, cart me off to the old folk's home now.

[Kate Sutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this. There was more to it than your usual chick lit and it made Cornwall sound like a fabulous place to visit. The male characters were great, the family was complex enough without sighing at the outrageousness of it all (which can happen alot with commerical fiction) an easy enjoyable read.

[Dora Okeyo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story: follows the life of Nell, whose boyfriend (Jeremy) suddenly decides to marry her sister-Heather and whose brother Ethan, is quite the addict and her mom believes that she should quit her job and finally get married because she is not young.
I loved: Nell, of course she is the heroine, but how she deals with her sister's new life, and being a single mom and always hoping to get over the fact that the man she loved married her sister- makes this book worth reading.
I was amazed: at how much it took Michael to finally see that Nell did love him and not her ex or pete.
However: The author did not dwell so much on Nell's ew found happiness, it was only like three paragraphs where you know that she loves Michael and is going to get him back-I felt as though she cheated Nell out of a happy ending.
Award: 4 stars
Reason: It's a good story that gives loveand family shortcomings a new twist.

[Monica Akinyi Odhiambo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely read,though I felt the author was abit harsh on Nell. What ticked me off was when her ex Jeremy, started dating her sister Heather. I mean didn't she ever hear of "the code"? That's betrayal of the highest degree. Jeremy to me was so daring, how do you move from one sister to another? For him to even admit that he wanted Nell back, had me shocked. Anyway I loved the scenery of Cornwall and the beach, and handsome surfer dude Michael. He was such a delight. And the secrets revealed and how they each felt for each other.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a slow start, I really enjoyed this. It's the story of a typically dysfunctional family, where the elderly matriarch is taken ill and one of the three adult children needs to go stay in Cornwall over the summer. Because of circumstances, Nell, with her daughter Cass, gets the 'short straw' over siblings Ethan and Heather and begrudgingly travels down from London. Sister Heather is now engaged to Jeremy, Nell's former love, while Ethan's wife Janet is seemingly perfect and clearly has her eye on the inheritance....

[Suzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first Polly Williams book I have read and although I did enjoy it I found it abit slow possibly an ideal holiday/beach read. I started really getting into it and finding myself struggling to put it down in the last quarter of the book. Which disappointed me because the general story was really good. I loved the main characters and was routing for certain couples and routing for others to be found out! I will definitely be trying another Polly Williams book.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I needed a good 'light' read and this fitted the bill. I enjoyed the family secrets and the tangled relationships of the family and that the plot bowled along. I didn't enjoy the name dropping for clothes and household goods. I think that it's lazy writing in all honesty.

A good summer romance read.

[Βιβλιοπωλείο Αριστείδης · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice and easy read, with quite interesting characters and pleasant dialogue. I enjoyed reading about Nell's personal struggles but the part where the book turns into a mystery, I found a bit blah. Overall, a very nice "female" kind of book that I didn't really want to put down. Polly Williams writes in a very pleasant way, even if I wasn't thrilled with the story itself.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite it's slow start I absolutely loved this book. Loved all the characters and the twists and turns in the plot - funny and sad all at the same time and I had n idea which way the story would turn next. Highly recommended.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this delightful story. It was an easy read that drew me into it really quickly. The characters were likeable though I would have liked to know more about them. This is the first book I have read by this author I will look out for more in future.

[Lynda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this......loved the descriptions of the area as have holidayed in Cornwall many a time and could really imagine the coves/cafes etc she described.I enjoyed the twist in the tale as well and how April linked in too.A great read and look forward to some more please!

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really lovely sweet story about family, relationships & love. Kind of knew from the off where it was going but still enjoyed the journey. The characters are well rounded & real, not too perfect or far fetched. A really good read for 'chick lit' fans.

[The Book Whisperer (aka Boof) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to follow.

[Kayward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Predictable but good read, first polly williams

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a good book. The ending is happy and sad at the same time :')

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

It moved really slowly, and didn't grab me. I really only finished it because I wanted to see how it ended up.