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Published Apr 2010
352 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
In the bestselling tradition of Loving Frank and March comes a novel for anyone who loves Little Women
Millions of readers have fallen in love with Little Women. But how could Louisa May Alcott - who never had a romance - write so convincingly of love and heart-break without experiencing it herself?
Deftly mixing fact and fiction, Kelly O'Connor McNees imagines a love affair that would threaten Louisa's writing career - and inspire the story of Jo and Laurie in Little Women. Stuck in small-town New Hampshire in 1855, Louisa finds herself torn between a love that takes her by surprise and her dream of independence as a writer in Boston. The choice she must make comes with a steep price that she will pay for the rest of her life.
"It'll do the trick as a pleasant diversion for readers with fond memories of Alcott's work, but the lack of gravity prevents it from becoming anything greater." - Publishers Weekly
"The drama of the situation is compromised by a too-simplistic treatment of the characters and, of course, by the historical record, which shows that Alcott remained a self-styled spinster.... the infusion of issue-driven material involving women’s rights lends a somewhat didactic air to a work that is, after all, romantic fiction." - Booklist
"McNees gets the period details just right: the crinolines and carriages; the spare, aesthetic plainness of 19th century New England. And although the love affair with Joseph is invented, she remains faithful to the broad outlines of Alcott's biography. In fact, The Lost Summer is the sort of romantic tale to which Alcott herself was partial, one in which love is important but not a solution to life's difficulties. Devotees of Little Women will flock to this story with pleasure." - The Washington Post
"It's a charming novel, grounded in scholarship and fact but relying on imagination for the romance and fun. McNees discovered in reading biographies of Alcott that there was one summer about which very little was known -- the summer of 1855, right before Louisa went off to Boston to become a writer. Here, McNees gives us that summer, creating a bittersweet love affair for Louisa and presenting her with the choice of marriage or career." - Minneapolis-St Paul Star-Tribune
"It's a pleasant but extremely slow-paced book, with characters that aren't well fleshed out. ...McNees is exceptionally discreet with the intimate details of the lovers' brief fling, and her picture is so stark, it's hard to believe it would invoke a lifelong passion, or the depth of pain Alcott experiences." - Huffington Post
This information about The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kelly O'Connor McNees is a former editorial assistant and English teacher. Originally from Michigan, she now lives with her husband in Chicago.
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