Review: 'Searching for Summer' by Christine Campbell

I have reviewed this book as one of  Rosie's Book Review Team

'Searching for Summer' is a character-driven novel that draws the reader in to Mirabelle’s world.  She is an interesting, fun-loving woman with a big personality, however, when her daughter goes missing, she is tortured by questions about her worth as a mother and begins to lose her self-confidence.

The first part of the book is taken up with her emotional response to the loss of her daughter.  Then we see the super-human efforts that Mirabelle goes to in her search for Summer: sleeping rough, trailing ‘suspects’ and persuading Sam (a detective friend) not to give up, when there is little justification for pursuing the investigation (Summer is old enough to leave home).

The ending is not clichéd.  In fact this book is not in the least sentimental, which is refreshing.  If I’m honest, I found the first part a little repetitive, but I always wanted to find out what had happened to Summer.  In the end, though, I was more interested in Mirabelle and how she would come out of an experience that not only made her question her relationship with her daughter, but also the direction her own life was taking.

In the next book, we are told that Mirabelle will turn detective and open an agency to find missing people.  Her tenacity is not in doubt!  Perhaps she has found her true vocation…

An interesting read.  A well-written book.

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