In her debut novel The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, Kelly O’Connor McNees blends facts from Louisa May Alcott’s personal journals with fiction to create a summer romance perfect for your beach bag or a literary afternoon at home.

In the summer of 1855, Walt Whitman’s controversial Leaves of Grass has just been published and Louisa is still trying to determine how she will become a famous writer as she is moving with her family from her beloved Boston to Wapole, New Hampshire. The Alcotts are to live in a house that a generous uncle is allowing them to stay in, due to their financial shortcomings. While in Wapole, Louisa meets the fictional Joseph Singer. Even though Joseph irritates Louisa and she is determined not to marry because she wants her independence, his love of books, his views on the world they live in, and his respect for her writing make it difficult for Louisa not to fall for Joseph. Her new-found love is threatened when she finds out Joseph may not be free to return her love. Louisa has to decide to fight for Joseph or fight for her writing career.

As a fan of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, I could not wait to read The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott and McNees did not disappoint. McNees’ interpretation and creativity created a wonderful combination of the story behind the real Jo March, and the struggles her family faced, and a beautiful love story that one can imagine could have been the inspiration of the relationship between Jo and Laurie. The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott is a must-read for Alcott fans!

You may also enjoy:

Little Women by Louisa May AlcottThe original, classic tale of four young sisters growing up in 1860′s New England.

March by Geraldine Brooks
With events that coincide with Little Women, this is the story of Mr. March away at war.

In honor of National Poetry Month, all the books in our poetry section will be 10% off for the month! Saturdays in April, if you can answer our poetry trivia question, we’ll give you a copy of either 101 Great American Poems or English Romantic Poetry: An Anthology (limit one per customer, while supplies last).

Here’s a poem to whet your appetite, the first in Rita Dove’s three-part cycle of poems on adolescence.

Adolescence–I

In water-heavy nights behind grandmother’s porch
We knelt in the tickling grasses and whispered:
Linda’s face hung before us, pale as a pecan,
And it grew wise as she said:
“A boy’s lips are soft,
As soft as baby’s skin.”
The air closed over her words.
A firefly whirred near my ear, and in the distance
I could hear streetlamps ping
Into miniature suns
Against a feathery sky.

“Adolescence–I” can be found in Rita Dove’s Selected Poems, along with the poems that won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1987.