Summer Light

Rating:
Summary: Not a good book
Review: I picked up *Summer Light* on Friday night for a weekend read and was finished by midnight on Saturday. Although I'm not a huge fan of professional sports or athletes, I fell in love with the pro hockey hero and his heroine, a single mom and wedding planner.

Martin Cartier is a 38-year old hockey professional with an axe to grind. His first wife left him and took his only daughter with her, and tragic events later led to his daughter Natalie's death. He plays every game as if he's seeking revenge against the person he holds responsible for Natalie, his father. When he meets an unusual 6-year old young girl named Kylie on a flight to Boston, everything changes. May Taylor, wedding planner for the Bridal Barn in small-town Massachusetts, never paid much attention to hockey, or any professional sport, for that matter. Her daughter, Kylie, experienced waking dreams and visions of people who have passed on to the next world. When she sees Martin on the plane, she also sees an angel, his daughter Natalie.

Kylie brings Martin and May together, who fall in love at first sight. Their marriage brings more than the three together, though, for Kylie sees that she needs to help Martin with another journey, one involving forgiveness and love, as he loses his sight. The book was so wonderful to read, but I'd definitely suggest a box of Kleenex. It was a total tear-jerker!

Rating:
Summary: Has Me Hooked on This Author!
Review: I was in my favorite bookstore a month or so ago and asked one of the employees for some help in introducing me to a new author. I was tired of reading the same old authors time and time again. She told me about Luanne Rice and reccomended that I read Summer Light. I bought the book and had it read within a few days time. I loved this book! I am now hooked on her books and have borrowed 5 of them from my mother!! It isn't often that an author can get me so hooked on a book that I don't want to clean house, cook, etc.!!
The plot in Summer Light has ups and downs just like real life does. The child in this story is fascinating and I am a true believer that we all have angels surrounding us. We just have to be open to it to believe. I would highly reccomend this book to anyone!! I can't wait to dive into the rest of Luanne Rice's books!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Unbeleivably Touching and Romantic
Review: I'd only read one other Luanne Rice title before picking up "Summer Light", and although I enjoyed it (Firefly Beach), Summer Light has it beaten, hands down . It's truly been a while since I got up early to continue reading a book, but I did it for this one. This book was fantastic.It had everything. May Taylor is a quiet, reserved woman, making the best out of a life that has left her dissappointed too many times. To top it all off, her daughter Kylie is 'gifted' with the ability to talk to, and see, angels. It is through Kylie's frequent trips to various doctors and specialists that May meet hockey legend Martin Cartier.One of Kylie's 'angels' tells her that Martin needs their help, and they need him. After a chance meeting and a freak accident, May and Martin find themselves so deeply in love it seems that nothing can tear them apart.
As always happens in the books we love the most, reality is a nasty presense in the lives of our fictional heros, and May, Martin and Kylie must all face their own demons. Struggling to build their family and protect their future, the Cartier's must make their peace with the past.
By the last three chapter of 'Summer Light' I was constantly dabbing at the tears. I was totally touched by Ms. Rice's story, and found little Natalie to be as real as any other character in the book. This is a book I will HAVE to lend to friends, because I know how much they will enjoy it. And I know that I'll be keeping "Summer Light" handy enough to read again soon. Great characters, great story, great romance, great, great ending. Need I say more =:)

Rating:
Summary: I love Ms. Rice.
Review: She's a super writer! I love her books & the subjects that they cover. Don't delay, pick up one of her books & read it.
You'll be an automatic fan. I'm still working my way through her books, and I haven't been disappointed yet. This is one of my fav's.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing Book!
Review: Since 1988 I have been a loyal and avid reader of Luanne Rice�s books. While browsing at the library years ago I first came across Crazy in Love and today I always look forward to a new Luanne Rice book. That said I must now admit that Summer Light was one of Rice�s more disappointing books. Yes it did contain many of Rice�s themes I�ve come to enjoy which include the love of a couple for each other, the love of a parent for a child and relatives who disappoint us. But ultimately this book was not a satisfying read. And this may very well be the author�s concentration on angels communing with the dead and the author also delving into the world of extra sensory perception.

May is a wedding planner in Hubbard Point, Conn. and the single mother of a very unusual young girl Kaylie. After the death of her great grandmother and a traumatic event, Kaylie begins to see things before they happen and also talks to people who have died. Fearing for her daughter�s sanity, May seeks the help of paranormal experts who have few clues as to what is happening to Kaylie. On a flight home from an appointment in Canada with these experts, Kaylie asks a man to help save her mother and herself when the plane crashes. The man is a great hockey player, Martin Cartier, who has secrets of his own. These include the death of his young daughter a few years before, and his hatred for his father Serge, also a former hockey player, who is now in prison. This chance encounter between May, Martin and Kaylie and the subsequent plane crash which Kaylie predicted will have far reaching consequences which will lead to their association and the book progresses to another tragedy and a predictable conclusion.

Unfortunately for me this was a poor example of Luanne Rice�s plot and characters development. I never found myself either interested in these people or their situation. I do suggest reading some of Luanne Rice�s really good books like Blue Moon or Safe Harbor to see how good this author can present a book which leaves you yearning to read more by her. I�m sorry to say Summer Light just wasn�t one of them..

Rating:
Summary: More Luanne Rice lite
Review: This is a very good book, but again (as with Rice's recent Firefly Beach) it's more of a lite sampling of the character depth that Luanne Rice has delivered so consistently so many times in the past. It's an engaging, original story of single mom wedding planner May raising her magical daughter Kylie and marrying charismatic but troubled hockey star Martin Cartier. Martin deals with the earlier tragic death of his own young daughter, Natalie, by repression and denial and is mired in unforgiveness towards his convict father, himself a hockey legend, for contributing to Natalie's death and for perpetrating other family betrayals.

Rice weaves a fabric with many interesting threads - Kylie's magical prescience and angel friends, a wedding planner's enabling role in true love, the importance of childhood friends in the adult experience, the origin of sports rivalry in childhood disillusionments - but somehow the whole cloth of the book remains patchy, almost threadbare in spots. I never understood how Martin could be so closed-in emotionally for most of the story and still attract May, who overall impressed me with her own emotional maturity and self-awareness.

As with all her books, she uses a few gripping, almost gruesome scenes to advance character exposition and plot. This is absolutely where Rice shines in her latest two books. While extending such intensity would probably make for too painful a read, I find myself wishing something in the story had lasted longer or had been explored to greater depth. That said, even a less than top rated Luanne Rice book will provide much more reading satisfaction than most of the 5 star reads out there.

Rating:
Summary: Bravo, Luanne Rice
Review: This is one of Luanne Rice's best. If you have never read Rice before, or tried to read her before,(say, Cloud Nine-Dream Country) but couldn't, "Summer Light" is a very fast paced novel and better than her previous works. I had to force myself to put it down. I don't always like to finish a novel in one sitting, but I could have with this.

There were several times when I was near tears, which doesn't always happen when I read romances.

The themes of forgiveness, miracles, and lots of medical terminology running through this novel, as one of the main characters, Hockey player, Martin Cartier, is going blind--very sad and tragic, as he tries to wield a hockey puck but can't see. Martin Cartier needs a miracle, and he just might have found it in his love interest, May Taylor, and her "psychic" daughter, 6-year-old, Kylie.

Luanne Rice is a very emotional writer, more emotional than intellectual. The writing isn't as thought-provoking as it is emotion-feeling provoking. But this is what most romance readers want: writing that makes you feel, rather than think. Although, out of all the romance writers, Luanne Rice (along with Barbara Delinsky and Nicholas Sparks) is the most intelligent and realistic.

If you liked Barbara Delinskys "Lake News" or Nicholas Sparks "A Walk to Remember" then you would like "Summer Light".

So, on to Luanne Rice's "Firefly Beach", as I am looking forward to reading a lot more by this author.

Rating:
Summary: The first I've read by this author; definitely not the last!
Review: This is the first book that I've read by Luanne Rice, the beautiful cover actually drew me to it on the shelf; however, once I started reading it, I could not put it down. I really enjoyed this story - through the good times and the bad. I cannot wait to read more books by Luanne Rice - I hope they are just as good as this one.

Rating:
Summary: A keeper
Review: This is the first time I've read anything by LuAnne Rice, but it definitely will not be my last.
I'm inspired by the way she draws the reader into the lives of these characters and you suddenly find yourself wrapped up in their emotions as if they were your own. I'm eager to see if she is consistent with her style and technique. I highly recommend this book.