Summer is for Lovers by Jennifer McQuiston (audiobook) – Narrated by Lana J. Weston

His heart is unavailable.
Luckily, her interest lies in the rest of him…

Though she was just a girl when they first met, Caroline Tolbertson’s infatuation with David Cameron remains undimmed. Now fate has brought the handsome Scotsman back to Brighton for what promises to be an unforgettable summer. Soon, Caroline will have to choose a husband, but for now she is free to indulge her curiosity in things of a passionate nature.

That is, if David will agree to teach her.

Past mistakes have convinced David he’ll make a terrible husband, though he’ll gladly help the unconventional Caroline find a suitor. Unfortunately, she has something more scandalous in mind. As the contenders for her hand begin to line up, her future seems assured…provided David can do the honorable thing and let them have her.

When a spirited young woman is determined to break Society’s rules, all a gentleman can do is lend a hand…or more.

Rating: B- overall (B for content and C+ for narration

Summer Is for Lovers is an enjoyable, if predictable, story set at the seaside resort of Brighton in the mid-nineteenth century. Brighton is a nice change of scene for a British-set historical, as the majority of those are set in and around London. Even more unusual is the fact that the heroine, rather than being a wallflower, poor-relation, drab governess, or feisty debutante, is a young woman of athletic bent.

The book opens with twelve-year-old Caroline Tolbertson saving a young soldier from drowning in the sea off the Brighton coast. She’s younger and smaller but her skill in the water is prodigious and she is able to rescue him from the dangerous current. Even though he’s dripping wet and worse the wear for drink, he’s handsome, charming, witty, and rather sweetly self-deprecating about being rescued by a girl! And, of course, young Caroline tumbles head-over-heels for him.

Many years later, the two stumble across each other by the Brighton sea-front again. Now in his early thirties and resigned from the army, David Cameron (and how I wish the author had given her hero a different surname, because it was really distracting!) has travelled to the resort with his mother, who is very ill, in the hopes that a change of air will be beneficial to her health. The intervening years have not seen much change for Caroline, however, who is still unmarried at the advanced age of twenty-three, and residing in the town with her mother and sister.

One of the things that sets Summer Is for Lovers apart from most other historical romances is the fact that Caroline is a hugely talented swimmer. I don’t think I’ve come across a story in which the heroine is an athlete before, because, of course, at the time in which the book is set, for a young woman to be sporty in that way was frowned upon. In fact, it was frowned upon for a woman to be good at anything to a very high standard, whether it be music, art, or sport. Females were expected to have a long list of “accomplishments” but woe betide any woman who excelled in any field, because she could not be a “professional” anything. (Unless she earned her living on her back, but that’s not this story!)

She may be incredibly talented in the water, but on land, Caroline is a mass of insecurities. She knows that her physique is not at all in the currently accepted mode for beauty. She’s tall, lithe, long-legged, and small-breasted at a time when petite and curvaceous was the preferred body type. She dresses abominably and her hair – usually simply and ruthlessly tied back for swimming – is uncared for and messy. It doesn’t help matters that, shortly before she meets David again, she had foolishly allowed a young man to kiss her, who then proceeded to tell all his friends that kissing her had been like kissing a boy. Thus Caroline, already sensitive about her height, broad shoulders, and lack of curves, is made to feel even less feminine and more undesirable than she had already believed herself to be. The problem is that her family’s financial situation means that it’s time for her to find herself a husband and gossip about her lack of feminine charms is certainly not going to help Caroline to secure an offer.

You can read the rest of this review at AudioGals.