Review - Summer With My Sister by Lucy Diamond

Another delightful, feel-good book by Lucy Diamond. 

I was first introduced to Lucy Diamond last year when I read a fabulous book called The Beach Cafe and my review of that can be found here. 

Polly was a dynamic, high-flying, London stockbroker with no real friends, or real life.  She just worked non-stop and mixed with colleagues who showed their true colours when her life started to go downhill.  She had always looked down on her sister Clare, who is a single mum to two children who she absolutely adores and her sister has never really showed much interest in her kids, something that has always upset her.   Clare has always lived close to her parents and has a lovely family relationship.   

When Polly realises that the only way she can survive is to return to her family and the village in which she grows up, they realise that they are not only sisters but that they could help each other out and eventually become friends if they both let go of their hang-ups and get on with their lives.     

A wonderful tale of two very different sisters who have always felt that they were to blame for something that had happened when they were both young.  It wasn't until they talked which is something that they have never really done throughout their lives, that they realised that what happened was always going to happen and that they could no longer let these thoughts control and take over their lives. 

This is a beautifully written book.  As someone who got made redundant from a job a few years back, I could so relate to the way that Lucy describes how Polly feels.  Also the way the relationship develops between these two very different sisters, was quite emotionally scribed and I had a few "moments" throughout the book where I found myself wiping away a tear from my eye! (Big softie - I know!)

Lucy has such a fantastic way of creating believable and likeable characters, that you feel you know them inside out and such a tremendous way of describing places that you feel like you could reach out and touch the surroundings and actually be there.  A fabulous author whose work I could read over and over and again and back to back too! Can't wait for more of her work to be published.    I don't think I could ever tire of her writing!

She also writes amazingly gorgeous children's books under her real name, Sue Mongredien.  Sue/Lucy lives in Bath with her husband and three young children.  She was born in 1970 and grew up in Nottingham.  After reading English at Leeds University, she moved to London and worked for various publishers before she travelled around the world for a year and a half.  When she came back, she worked in publishing again before moving to the BBC.  She chose to keep her genres separate by writing children's books under her real name and writing her novels as Lucy Diamond.  Summer With My Sister is her sixth novel and she is currently working on her seventh between being a busy mom and wife. 

Learn more about Sue at her website
Learn more about Sue writing as Lucy Diamond at her website
You can follow Sue on Twitter
You can buy this book via Amazon