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Lady Sunshine

A Novel

ebook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
"A delicious daydream of a book." Elin Hilderbrand, New York Times bestselling author of 28 Summers
"With lyrical writing and a page-turning plot, this sun-dappled book has it all." —Karen Dukess, author of The Last Book Party
ONE ICONIC FAMILY. ONE SUMMER OF SECRETS. THE DAZZLING SPIRIT OF 1970S CALIFORNIA.
For Jackie Pierce, everything changed the summer of 1979, when she spent three months of infinite freedom at her bohemian uncle's sprawling estate on the California coast. As musicians, artists, and free spirits gathered at The Sandcastle for the season in pursuit of inspiration and communal living, Jackie and her cousin Willa fell into a fast friendship, testing their limits along the rocky beach and in the wild woods... until the summer abruptly ended in tragedy, and Willa silently slipped away into the night.
Twenty years later, Jackie unexpectedly inherits The Sandcastle and returns to the iconic estate for a short visit to ready it for sale. But she reluctantly extends her stay when she learns that, before her death, her estranged aunt had promised an up-and-coming producer he could record a tribute album to her late uncle at the property's studio. As her musical guests bring the place to life again with their sun-drenched beach days and late-night bonfires, Jackie begins to notice startling parallels to that summer long ago. And when a piece of the past resurfaces and sparks new questions about Willa's disappearance, Jackie must discover if the dark secret she's kept ever since is even the truth at all.
*Don't miss Amy Mason Doan's next novel, The California Dreamers, available now to preorder!
Also by Amy Mason Doan:

  • The California Dreamers
  • Summer Hours
  • The Summer List

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      • Kirkus

        April 15, 2021
        After she unexpectedly inherits a remote Northern California coastal estate that once belonged to her musician uncle, a woman in her late 30s must make peace with the memories of her lost family. In the summer of 1979, Jackie is an angry teenager. She hates her private school, the fellow students who call her Supertramp, her father's new wife, and the fact that her new stepmother is besotted with purchasing everything for her in various cheerful shades of yellow. When her father and stepmother decide on a belated summerlong European honeymoon, Jackie makes a push to stay with her uncle Graham, Aunt Angela, and cousin Willa at the Sandcastle, their rambling Northern California estate, where musicians and their families come and go. Once she arrives, she realizes that her godlike uncle, a once-famous folk musician, is the sun around which all the people in his life orbit. In 1999, Jackie is once again at the estate, clearing out the house and its many cabins after unexpectedly inheriting it from her aunt. No longer angry, Jackie is an elementary school music teacher in Boston. She's devoted to her students, but she's walled herself off emotionally from everyone else, including her fiance, Paul. Much like that idyllic summer of 1979, in the summer of '99, the estate is full of musicians and people and laughter, as music producer Shane Ingram, a friend of Angela's, records a new album of Graham's unpublished work in his legendary basement studio. Author Doan has created a story that is half set in each world as Jackie clears out the house for sale in 1999 while working through her memories of the one idyllic summer she spent drenched in love, happiness, and sunlight before everything went very wrong. Doan's descriptions of the rugged landscape in Humboldt County create a visually rich backdrop for her characters to inhabit. A well-written, well-paced novel that unfolds slowly, hinting at the events that broke apart a young woman's life.

        COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • Booklist

        April 15, 2021
        Jacqueline Pierce knew her folk musician uncle hosted bacchanalian gatherings full of weed, wine, and musicianship on his sprawling coastal California estate in the seventies, but she didn't expect to feel the legacy of his music so powerfully after all these years. When Jackie inherits the old estate, her first impulse is to quickly clear it of all personal effects and sell it to the highest bidder. She surprises herself by allowing a small group of musicians to record a tribute album there first. As Jackie cleans, sorts, and organizes, she drifts back in time to the last summer she spent on the estate. At 17, Jackie thought she and her cousin, Willa, had their whole lives ahead of them. Today, Jackie wonders what she has left. Fans of Crossing California and Daisy Jones and the Six will be enamored with the world of Lady Sunshine, flipping between the estate's heyday and the continued allure of fame. Doan (Summer Hours, 2019) paints Jackie as a sympathetic, heartwarming narrator facing an introspective journey she never anticipated.

        COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • School Library Journal

        December 1, 2021

        Doan has shaped two main characters in two different time periods. In 1999, Jackie returns to her uncle's home to pack it up and sell after the death of her aunt, who was the last person alive in their immediate family. Jackie spends the summer in the home reliving her time as a teen there in the 1970s. She and her cousin, Willa, were the same age and became close friends back then. On first sight, this novel might seem like other flashback-in-time stories, but readers are in for quite a surprise because this story twists and turns through the 20-year journey to enlighten the older Jackie as well as reveal key secrets and misunderstandings that have haunted her for decades. The characters are flawed but likable and genuine. VERDICT Readers of realistic fiction and suspense will not be able to put the book down after they realize the mystery that must be unraveled for Jackie and Willa to find peace.-April Sanders, Texas A&M Commerce, TX

        Copyright 2021 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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