Product Description

Overseer Nicolas Wells had been coming to Mount Desert Island for ten summers to help build cottages for the rich and powerful. Despite his secrets, he had grown comfortable in the peaceful little island town, getting to know its inhabitants and even to consider some of them friends. The eleventh year, however, he arrived to startling news: the island's peace had been shattered by a murder. At the request of the sheriff, Shawn Parnell, Nicolas agreed to hire Philip Hall, the local blacksmith and the probable next victim, in the hope that the secure construction site would be safer than his house in the village. He never expected the decision to lead to danger. Or to love. See www.dreamspinnerpress.com for a full excerpt.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #915581 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 248 pages

Customer Reviews

A Summer Place by Ariel Tachna
Can I confess you something? When I was young I saw and re-saw the television fiction inspired by the journal of Laura Ingalls Wilder, about a family leaving in a farm near a little town. The period was the end of the nineteen century and every day I saw a tale of good feeling and love.

All right, reading A Summer Place by Ariel Tachna I have had the feeling to see another episode in the fiction. She has a way to decipte the little community that reminds me the characters I have loved. The town sheriff, the widow, the bank's clerk, the owner of the store department... Only the town doctor is not of the crew to complete the cast!

Philip is the 27 years old blacksmith of the town. He is homosexual. Not that he has claimed it loudly, but his last lover has dumped him in front of all the city to being murder some day after in a way only a homosexual could be. And now the town sheriff, and old friend of Philip, thinks he could be the next victim and ask Nicolas, an outlander who comes every summer to the island to overseeing the building of huge cottage for rich people, to hire Philip and takes him far away from the town.

Nicolas agrees, even if he has some doubts: also him is homosexual, and has always hidden his sexual preferences during his summer work in the island. But being this near to the handsome blacksmith could be a problem, moreover when other victims are found and the two, Nicolas and Philip, are forced to live in the same house.

I don't know about the strictly correctness of the setting, I only know that the feeling that has left me this novel is of a "thought" novel: it's not only a way to let us read of two men making sex. Really it could be a contemporary novel as a historical one, but I have liked the little glimpse Ariel Tachna has given us to this little community.

Both Nicolas and Philip are strong characters, maybe Nicolas a little to dominant than Philip, but I think it's a right characteritation: a blackmith and a builder cannot be two magnolies...

M/M romance with a unique setting.
This is the first release from Dreamspinner press, a M/M romance website. A Summer Place has a unique setting and the story starts off well. Nicolas is a builder in his 40s from Boston who braves the ocean, once winter thaws, to oversee the construction of summer homes for the rich on Mount Desert Island. As this is the 1880s, Nicolas has to hide his sexual preference for men. But that did not prevent him from falling for Philip, the island's young blacksmith, who was "outed" due to some unfortunate circumstances. Philip's lover was murdered, and he is being targetted by the same killer on a mission to wipe out all "sodomites".
The romance between the 2 men is convincing, with some pretty hot moments. The writer does a good job building up the tension as Philip slowly seduces Nicolas while the older Nicolas tries hard to ignore the attraction. The killer on a rampage provides some thrilling moments as the island's sheriff, Shawn, is determined to keep Philip alive. This is as much an erotica but the sex does not take precedence. An impressive effort from both writer and publisher and I look forward to more releases from Dreamspinner press.

disappointing
Not a good mystery and definitely not a love story. Just a bunch of repetitive lusting after each other's bodies. There is absolutely no justification for Philip and Nicolas to "love" each other. It seems the only basis for their attraction is physical - at least that's all they ever think about. And the acceptance shown by many of the locals is completely unrealistic for the time period (1884) and probably even for today.