This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Jennifer Joyce
Deidre O’Sullivan was set to be a star on the stage when she met and married writer Manus MacEntee. Raising their children – daughters Alma and Acushla and son Macdara – took its toll on Deidre’s career and she found herself retiring from the stage far earlier than she would have liked. Now approaching eighty, Deidre should be enjoying her later years, relaxing in the bosom of her family, but Deidre isn’t at all happy with the aging process and plans to deal with it in her own way.
Deidre and Manus’ children have all gone their separate ways in life but they’re brought together again by a series of events during the summer of 2013. The Long, Hot Summer delves into the lives of the MacEntees, whose lives are all changed by the end of that fateful summer.
I was looking forward to reading The Long, Hot Summer, mainly, I must confess, because of its gorgeous cover. The book wasn’t what I was expecting at all but I was quickly engrossed in the lives of the MacEntees. MacMahon’s writing has a nice flow to it and is descriptive without bogging down the plot. There are some quite horrific events within the book, but there were also some funny moments which helped to balance it out.
The book is divided into several sections, with each adult member of the MacEntee family taking centre stage in turn, beginning with Deidre, the matriarch of the story.
I didn’t always like Deidre very much as I found her quite selfish and rigid and not at all grandmotherly, but she did make for an interesting character and I did manage to warm to her a little more by the end.The person I was most intrigued by was Deidre and Manus’ son Macdara, so I was looking forward to learning more about him and his past, so I was a little disappointed when we didn’t delve into his character quite as much as the others.
I thought The Long, Hot Summer was a great read and I enjoyed getting to know the MacEntees very much.
8/10