This story of romance in a small town is beautifully told and masterfully structured. ( )

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Love and Summer, set in the small farming community of Rathmoye, Ireland, revolves around the lives of Ellie, a shy, orphan young woman raised by the nuns; her husband, Dillahan, whose first name is unknown to us; Florian Kilderry, a young man in the process of uprooting himself; Orpen Wren, a somewhat senile former librarian living in the past, and Joseph Paul Connulty and his sister, Miss. Connulty, who, inseparable as children, now live as cold strangers under the same roof. The novel opens with the funeral of Joseph Paul Connulty and Miss Connulty's mother, the late Mrs. Eileen Connulty, whose family owns a great portion of the town, and it is at this funeral where Florian Kilderry, passing by, stops and engages Ellie.

Initially, it is with Miss. Connulty that the novel engages the reader. She is a character to be pitied, coming off shrewd and cold when really her sore heart lies in the right place. Miss. Connulty watches from a distance and with a growing, hysterical dread the affections of a young woman, Ellie, in whom she sees a reflection of herself, being "ill-used."

Love and Summer is a tale of ordinary lives written in an extraordinary style. It is a novel which examines the intimate details of the common, plain, and mundane, only to have us realize that within such lives - every life, lie intricate details, meaning, and emotions that make the most seemingly insipid life hauntingly unforgettable. Trevor’s writing, of which this is the first I've read, is gentle and clam – unhurried, yet there is an underlying strength which runs throughout the whole tale, an anticipation in the words that mimics the inner turmoil of each life presented - major or minor. It is that, William Trevor’s use of words, which keeps the reader hooked and on edge, though the flow of the novel is mellow like that of an easy current.

An interesting, well-written piece, which, though dull and skim-able at times, is worth reading.

The solitary, aimless, Florian Kilderry is on the cusp of selling his family home and abandoning Ireland when he meets Ellie Dillahan. Their mutual attraction is recognized by both, as well as others in the rural town, and yet is delayed in its acknowledgement. As Florian sells and discards pieces of his life, Ellie performs her daily routine on her farm and realizes she loves Florian, but not her husband.

Trevor builds such tension that by the time they end up alone for the first time at an abandoned and isolated gatehouse and Florian takes Ellie's bicycle and lays it down beside his the moment is explosive in its understatement.

Trevor records detail and action with an unprejudiced eye and it is this steady brick-by-brick construction, combined with his surgical skill with description, that injects the story with emotional potency. ( )