In a Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor: Friday Book Snippets and Book Blogger Hop

Friday Book Snippets is a weekly blogging event co-hosted by 

Anne@HeadFullofBooks and Olivia at Bemused and Bookish. 

Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from:

 a. the book's beginning and 

b. page 56 (or another page) 

in the book you are currently reading. 

No spoilers, please.

Join the fun every Friday.

‘After all, I am not a young girl to be intimidated by her,’ Kate decided, as she waited outside her mother-in-law’s house.

Taylor, Elizabeth. In A Summer Season (Virago Modern Classics Book), p. 1. Kindle Edition. 

When they were sitting together in the bus, she felt completely happy, without knowing that to feel so is such a rare experience that it might never come to her again.

Taylor, Elizabeth. In A Summer Season (Virago Modern Classics Book), p. 56. Kindle Edition. 

Today's Featured Book: 

In a Summer Season

by Elizabeth Taylor

Genre: Fiction

Published: 1961

Page Count: 224 pages

Summary: 

Kate Heron is a wealthy, charming widow who marries, much to the disapproval of friends and neighbours, a man ten years her junior: the attractive, feckless Dermot. Then comes the return of Kate's old friend Charles - intelligent, kind and now widowed, with his beautiful young daughter. Kate watches happily as their two families are drawn together, finding his presence reassuringly familiar, but slowly she becomes aware of subtle undercurrents that begin to disturb the calm surface of their friendship. Before long, even she cannot ignore the gathering storm . . .

This is exactly the sort of story that I read exclusively for many years as a young woman. It's the kind of story written by a woman author that gets inside people's heads, that doesn't have a great deal of action, and that focuses on the lives of women. It's the genre we  once called women's fiction, but I'm not sure that term is still used. Whatever you want to call it, it was my favorite then, and it is still one of my favorites.

How then have I just come, after almost seventy years of reading, to this author, Elizabeth Taylor? Elizabeth Berg, Ann Hood, Anne Tyler, Elizabeth Strout---I've read most everything by these writers, but Elizabeth Taylor, who writes in much the same fashion? No.

This is a story that feels perfect in many ways. Sensible Kate, after losing her first husband and settling into middle-age, marries reckless, much younger Dermot. The two are madly in love, but that's all they have in common. Kate's son, Tom, and her daughter, Lou, suffer from their own love foibles, and then there is her neighbor, Charles, and his beautiful daughter. The author skillfully takes us into the minds of all these characters as they interact and go through the day-to-dayness of life with them. 

If you have read any other books by this author, please share them with me. I am eager to read more.

The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.    

What’s the best investment you’ve made for your blog? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee-Addicted Writer)

Oh dear. I've never spent money on my blog. Blogging is, for me, a hobby, fun, a joy, but I don't expect it to give me any cold cash.