The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott

by Kelly O'Connor McNees

A richly imagined, remarkably written story of the woman who created Little Women—and how love changed her in ways she never expected.

Countless readers have fallen in love with Little Women. But how could the author—who never had a romance—write so convincingly of love and heartbreak without experiencing it herself?

Deftly mixing fact and fiction, Kelly O’Connor McNees returns to the summer of 1855, when vivacious Louisa is twenty-two and bursting with a desire to free herself from family and societal constraints so she can do what she loves most. Stuck in small-town New Hampshire, she meets Joseph Singer, and as she opens her heart, 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.

• ISBN10: 0425240835
• ISBN13: 9780425240830
• Publish Date: 3 May 2011 (first published 1 April 2010)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 384
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780425240830

Reviews

[ladygrey]

I'd probably give this book 4 stars if I ever planned on reading it again, because it's very well written.

I liked that there's an old world feel to the novel, not just in the setting but in the way it's written and in the characters and they way they perceive the world. It felt like reading [b:Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe|9375|Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe|Fannie Flagg|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1165961740l/9375._SY75_.jpg|2129359] or talking to my grandmother.

The difficult thing with this book is that there's this dichotomy between what [a:Kelly O. McNees|3153732|Kelly O'Connor McNees|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1269361862p2/3153732.jpg] wrote and the perspective of her subject, [a:Louisa May Alcott|1315|Louisa May Alcott|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1200326665p2/1315.jpg]. I like the book that McNees wrote but she's limited to the historical record of how Alcott lived her life and what she believed about love and marriage, which was just daft. When I finished reading all I wanted to do was argue with Alcott about her limited views, but you can't really argue with historical figures who can't hear you and you can't fault McNees for writing her character accurately.

McNees wrote a smart, historical romance that I enjoyed reading.