Hello Summer, Goodbye

This is an exceptional coming-of-age tale tenderly glittered with first romance, slow seaside summers, and all those long afternoons belonging only to the young. Coney’s characters are readily believed and experienced, as they are deliberately relatable to most walks of life.

The story follows an intelligent and thoughtful teenager named Drove. Every summer, Drove and his parents vacation at their ocean cabin in the coastal town of Pallahaxi. Drove’s relationship with his parents will not be unfamiliar to many, as his career-driven father and superficial mother appear to be a constant source of frustration.

“Adults infuriate me, the way they always ramble on about hard times.”

At the forefront of Drove’s thoughts is the memory of a girl named Browneyes. She is the daughter of innkeepers (to the disapproval of his government-employed father), and Drove hopes she will remember him from their brief rendezvous last summer.

Here, you must pick up the novel to experience what befalls Drove and the town of Pallahaxi as the vicissitudes of war threaten to destroy an age of innocence. Coney has such a great sense of humor, a talent for landscape, a loving depiction of women, and a skillfully crafted peripeteia in his storytelling.

I shall not soon forget the gentle, lumbering Lorin, those furry creatures of care coming to bring warmth to the shivering inhabitants of a world growing colder.

Coney leaves the reader not only with a beautiful tale but with a reminder that one’s reality, perceptions, and relationships toward others can be positively reinforced and invigorated by reminding them of their special qualities. Nothing strengthens the soul of another like telling them how beautiful they are.