Season of Storms, Susanna Kearsley

There’s so much about reading Susanna Kearsley that reminds me of reading Mary Stewart’s work. Something about the sense of place (this is so firmly Italy, and the house and its grounds are so easy to imagine), the female heroine, the romance… Except it’s better, because it steers away from some of the colonial and sexist attitudes that were still pretty firmly entrenched in Mary Stewart’s work, despite her independent and reasonably proactive heroines.

And this book especially won me over, because the main character has been brought up by two gay men in a stable, loving relationship. Neither of them are stereotyped, and the relationship feels real, lived in, between both them and the woman who is essentially their daughter. I got more caught up by Roo and Bryan than by Celia and Alex, honestly. I also ended up having a conversation on Twitter with the author about which of various characters I’d want to be my dad… (Well, in reality, no one is better than my dad. But shush.) There’s some serious emotional punches there, which really work because of that warmth and family which Kearsley portrays so well.

The plot itself is reasonably predictable; the trick is that I got involved with the characters.

Rating: 4/5