July and August /

Continuing her Hill saga, Clark returns to the quaint village of Towne, Massachusetts, where the matriarch, Aunt Lily, has once again convened her quirky and far-flung family for an extended summer vacation, ostensibly to give everyone a chance for one last visit with her ailing niece, Ginger. Software moguls Brooks and Rollins roll up in a tricked-out RV with their supermodel girlfriends in tow, while supermom Betsy mini-vans solo across the country with her overprotected young daughter, Sally, safely seat-belted beside her. All are present when headstrong cousin Julie announces her engagement to Nicholas, a man no one has met and few believe exists. With Lily as the voice of reason and determination, the family plans Julie's end-of-summer wedding sans any input from the bride-to-be, and normally cautious Sally befriends Cam, a precocious Cambodian girl who quickly shows her all Towne's tricks and trouble spots. Brimming with wry wit and homespun wisdom, Clark's perceptive comedy of manners delectably extols the vagaries and virtues of large families.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2008 Booklist

In Clark's muted third installment to the Hill family saga, the clan gathers in Towne, Mass., for the summer. At the center of the story is Lily, the quiet matriarch who runs a fruit and vegetable stand; around her swirl Aunt Ginger (who is ill with cancer) and Ginger's daughter Betsy and granddaughter Sally, who come to visit from the West Coast. Sally spends most of the summer involved in an unlikely friendship with Cam, a math whiz Cambodian child who works for Lily at the stand. Alden and his grown children are back as well, though the men seem to be especially peripheral here, handing the focus to Alden's daughter, Julie, who is recently engaged to the mysterious (and possibly fictitious) Nicholas Davenant, a geologist who is in Siberia for the summer. The plot's slowness mirrors a lazy summer, and even if too many developments are saved for third act, readers who enjoyed the previous two Hill novels will be delighted to again dip into another unhurried and gently humorous WASP summer. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Set in a small western Massachusetts town, this tale explores the relationships, intrigue, and everyday interactions of a single extended family over a two-month period. Cousins, uncles, aunts, and friends converge for the summer around terminally ill Aunt Ginger at the homestead of never-married Aunt Lily and her farm-stand produce business. Sally, Ginger's young granddaughter from California, develops a friendship with a spirited local child. Successful software entrepreneur brothers return home with supermodel girlfriends in tow, in a Winnebago that they park for the summer in their father's driveway, which elicits the ire of the local busybody. Julie plans an end-of-summer wedding to an Englishman whom no one has met, and many family members wonder if he even exists. Will her estranged mother return home from overseas for the wedding and cause great discomfort for her father and all the other family members? Will there be a wedding? This enjoyable book features a broad cast of characters, is well written, and is able to evoke the languid days of a summer vacation. Highly recommended for general fiction collections.--Sarah Conrad Weisman, Corning Community Coll., NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A bucolic if bittersweet summer-long family reunion takes place nine years after a similar reunion that marked Clark's first novel in her trilogy about the Hills family of Towne, Mass (The Hills At Home, 2003). Matriarchal Aunt Lily, 75, is running a thriving fruit and vegetable stand business. She has invited her niece Ginger, languishing with cancer, to stay in her comfy big house for the summer along with Ginger's daughter Betsy and six-year-old granddaughter Sally. Sally quickly makes friends with Cam, daughter of Cambodian refugees who run a local Italian restaurant. Much of the novel follows the children's play, which is remarkable for its 1950s-like innocence and its precocity. Ginger's brother Alden (abandoned by his wife in A Way From Home, 2005) lives down the road. Shortly before July 4th, his three sons, two of them immensely successful techy entrepreneurs traveling in their own Winnebago, also arrive to spend the summer. So does his daughter Julie, who lives in England. She announces that she is engaged to a British geologist and wants to have the wedding at Lily's house in early September. Preparations begin with much to-do although Julie's vagueness about the absent groom leads to half-serious speculation among her brothers and their girlfriends that perhaps the wedding is a sham. Clark richly, albeit romantically, captures the minutia of small town life and the complicated dynamics of family. The Hills suffer minor--very minor--altercations and misunderstandings. They sell vegetables and have wonderful, leisurely meals. They read Trollope and C.S. Lewis. With help from Sally and Cam, Julie finds the perfect wedding dress. Real sorrow exists here--Ginger clearly is slipping toward death--and all the characters display prickles and pettiness at times, but good-heartedness and New England virtues prevail. In this idealized contemporary world, even the twentysomethings' worst expletive is "flip." The Hills make amiable companions, but after awhile charm alone is not enough to sustain interest in a narrative of small moments lacking forward momentum. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.