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When I was scanning the shelves in my local bookshop for holiday reading, my eyes were drawn, not to the title ‘The Summer of the Bear,’ longwinded and clumsy, but to the picture on the cover of a beautiful sunset spread over a wide sandy beach.
Set in the 1980’s Cold War era, between Germany and the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, the Fleming family are thrust into trauma when diplomat father, Nicky Fleming, suddenly dies. Transporting her two teenage girls and son of eight from Bonn back to the Western Hebridian Island she adores, Letty Fleming is cast adrift in her grief. Sheltering in the comfort of the familiar landscape she leaves her children to navigate their own way through the anger and confusion of their bereavement.

Although slow to start I was immediately drawn into the world of this fragile family as each member tried to negotiate the tragedy that had befallen them. Jamie, the youngest, a child with possible autism, doesn’t understand that his father has died and uses his intense imagination to make sense of his world, believing that in some way the bear and his father are connected. Alba, consumed with anger and sibling hate becomes increasingly destructive, whilst Georgie the eldest, although seemingly coping best of the three, is sensitively on the cusp of womanhood. It was their mother Letty, that I wanted to shake out of her cocoon and into awareness. Whilst she seemed to have the energy to discover how and why her husband died, she didn’t extend that energy to her children who needed her the most.

Described as part suspense thriller, this book did not have me frantically turning the pages to discover the answer to Nicky’s death. I was entrapped, haunted by the characters and their predicaments, so that it was the satisfaction of finding out how the family fared that compelled me to read on.

And as for the bear in the title? Fundamental for Jamie’s redemption but so loosely tethered to the rest it was easily forgotten. Don’t rush out and get this book, but it is worth adding to your list. It delivered what I wanted- a light, holiday read that easily and interestingly escaped from my world into someone else’s.

By Teresa Hamilton