The Summer We Ran Away

Jenny Oliver

WHEN a misplaced WhatsApp message lets the whole street know that Julia Fletcher fancies her neighbour’s husband, there’s only one thing she can do… run away!

Pack your bags, climb into an old camper van and head for the Gallic charms of summertime in France as Jenny Oliver whisks us away on an adventure full of laughter, tears, unexpected dramas, and self-discovery.

The Summer We Ran Away is an escapist odyssey in every sense… the tale of one woman’s desperate flight away from the sniggers and sneers of her charmless neighbours, and the perfect destination for a sunshine getaway in lockdown.

Feel-good, contemporary fiction is what Oliver does best and this heartwarming romp, with some acutely observed truisms tucked neatly into its pages, is one of the happiest and most uplifting books you will read in this unsettling year of crisis and pandemic.

It’s going to be the party of the summer… everyone in the Cedar Lane WhatsApp group is preparing for Queen Bee Lexi Warrington’s White Hot get-together. It’s a day when squabbles and petitions are put aside as neighbours sip Prosecco under the fairy lights and gather by the hot tub to marvel at Lexi’s effortlessly glamorous life with dishy husband Hamish and their perfect blonde-haired twin girls.

LAUGHTER AND TEARS: Jenny Oliver

For Julia Fletcher, it’s a chance to coax husband Charlie out of his potting shed and into a white shirt so they can have a welcome break from the hellish house renovation they have been wrestling with on a rapidly dwindling budget.

The smart house on Cedar Lane was supposed to be their dream home but the endless list of improvements needed has brought their cash flow to a standstill and Charlie would far rather be nurturing his seeds in the garden.

The party is also a chance for Julia to pretend – just for a night – that her life is as perfect as Lexi’s. Julia is far from stupid and she knows that Lexi is just using her for her own ends, but there’s something ‘magnetic’ about her and she has fallen in with her followers.

When one of Julia’s WhatsApp messages to a friend, confessing that she has erotic dreams about Lexi’s husband, is misdirected during the party, revealing her most intimate thoughts to the entire Cedar Lane group, things reach boiling point.

Now that all the neighbours know exactly what she’s thinking, the only one thing Julia can do is run away and her best chance of fleeing is with another of her neighbours, Amber Beddington, a woman who is everything Lexi isn’t… ‘all messy hair and snake skin’ clothes, and who doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks.

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Amber, who has a soft spot for Julia and recognises she is a cut above the Cedar Lane WhatsApp group, is off to France in an old campervan to buy antiques and she offers to take Julia with her on a long weekend trip. And when you feel you can’t look anyone in the road in the eye
ever again, it sounds like the perfect opportunity for Julia to take stock of her life... and enjoy a summer she’ll never forget!

A moment of mobile phone madness is the catalyst for this super sunshine romcom as two very different women – whose personal chemistry proves to be the perfect blend – pack up their troubles in an ancient yellow campervan and find that being yourself is by far the most rewarding way to live your life. And it’s amidst the vibrant sights, sounds and colour of a small French community in the lazy, hazy days of summer, and through a rollercoaster ride full of laughter and tears, that the reckless Amber and the more measured Julia finally face up to themselves and some hidden secrets.

Oliver knows how to please her readers and with a cast of eclectic characters, each portrayed as vividly as the town’s Gallic delights, and timely messages about self-honesty and the strength to be found in true love and friendship, this is a long weekend you wouldn’t want to miss!

(HQ, paperback, £7.99)