The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, Kelly OConnor McNees
The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, Kelly OConnor McNees
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The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott

Author: Kelly O'Connor McNees

Narrator: Emily Janice Card

Unabridged: 8 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 04/01/2010

Synopsis

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.

About The Author

Kelly O'Connor McNees is an editor and the critically acclaimed author of The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott and In Need of a Good Wife. She lives in Chicago with her husband and daughter.Emily Janice Card is an actor, singer, and writer from North Carolina, where she appeared in leading roles in stage productions such as The Fantasticks, The Importance of Being Earnest, Bye Bye Birdie, and Once Upon a Mattress. Since moving to Los Angeles, Card adapted and starred in the play A Sepulcher of Songs based on a short story by her father, Orson Scott Card.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Rebekah

Just on the cusp of international fame as a writer, Louisa May Alcott and her family move to the hamlet of Walpole, New Hampshire in the summer of 1855. Bronson Alcott, full-time philosopher and zero-time bread-winner, moves the family into a house generously on loan from family — just another chapt......more

Goodreads review by Katri

I really enjoyed reading this book, but I had one major issue with it. I've recently read quite a few contemporary books of fiction that take facts from the life of a famous author and create stories that very well could have happened, but didn't. I don't think this should be done. If I were to be a......more

Goodreads review by Jackie

I don't think I can find the words for how very much I loved this book. McNees worked from several biographies and Alcott's own journals to create this fictionalized account of a rumored love affair that the intensely private L.M.A. covered up. In these pages blooms the walking, talking inspirations......more

Quotes

"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 kind 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

"I have read Little Women at least a dozen times, but Kelly O'Connor McNees has given me a gift I will not soon forget. Louisa May Alcott is no longer simply an icon to me but a real woman in all her complexity, one who lived life in spite of exploitation and the expectations of her day, never giving up on her dream. Her story is as relevant today as when Alcott bravely made her way. I can't wait to give copies of this novel to all of my friends."
-Cassandra King, author of The Sunday Wife and The Same Sweet Girls

"Mixing fact drawn from Little Women author Louisa May Alcott's letters and journals with a longing to understand how Alcott-who is thought never to have been in love-could have written so movingly about it, Kelly O'Connor McNees delivers a wonderfully imagined, lively novel of first love herself. Louisa emerges as a spunky, honest heroine torn between her own personal love affair and the need to create more enduring stories that might console readers and lovers for generations to come."
-Meg Waite Clayton, author of The Wednesday Sisters

"A superb, thoughtful, and deliciously paced book that will hook lovers of history and Alcott alike. I enjoyed it tremendously."
-Terry Gamble, author of The Water Dancers and Good Family

"Richly imagined and gracefully told, McNees' captivating story will delight anyone who loved Alcott's feisty heroine Jo March."
-Judith Ryan Hendricks, best-selling author of Bread Alone

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