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    Black Dog Summer
    Black Dog Summer
    Black Dog Summer
    Audiobook9 hours

    Black Dog Summer

    Written by Miranda Sherry and Jilly Bond

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In this extraordinary debut novel reminiscent of The Lovely Bonesand Little Bee, a mother watches from the afterlife as her teenage daughter recovers amidst the startling dysfunction of her extended family.

    Compulsively readable and stylistically stunning, Black Dog Summerbegins with a murder, a farmstead massacre, in the South African bush. Thirty-eight-year-old Sally is but one of the victims. Her life brutally cut short, she narrates from her vantage point in the afterlife and watches as her sister, Adele, her brother-in-law and unrequited love Liam, her niece Bryony, and her teenage daughter, Gigi, begin to make sense of the tragedy.

    A suspenseful drama focusing on marriage and fidelity, sisterhood, and the fractious bond between mothers and daughters, Black Dog Summerasks: In the wake of tragedy, where does all that dark energy linger? The youngest characters, Bryony and Gigi, cousins who are now brought together after Sally's murder, are forced into sharing a bedroom. Bryony becomes confused and frightened by the violent energy stirred up and awakened by the massacre, while Gigi is unable to see beyond her deep grief and guilt. But they are not the only ones aware of the lurking darkness. Next door lives Lesedi, a reluctant witchdoctor who hides her mystical connection with the dead behind the façade of their affluent Johannesburg suburb.

    As Gigi finally begins to emerge from her grief, the fragile healing process is derailed when she receives some shattering news, and in a mistaken effort to protect her cousin, puts Bryony's life in imminent danger. Now Sally must find a way to prevent her daughter from making a mistake that could destroy the lives of all who are left behind.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateFeb 18, 2015
    ISBN9781622316212
    Black Dog Summer
    Author

    Miranda Sherry

    Miranda Sherry was seven when she began writing stories. She then had a number of strange jobs, including puppeteer, bartender and musician, before becoming a full-time writer. She lives in Johannesburg with the love of her life and two weird cats.

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    Reviews for Black Dog Summer

    4/5

    17 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Sally is killed in a farmstead massacre in the South African bush, and watches from the afterlife as her daughter Gigi and her extended family cope with the shocking events and the aftermath.

      As shocking as the opening event is, this is mostly a gentle and moving story, as Gigi, Sally's sister Adele, Adele's husband Liam--whom Sally had also loved--and their children Tyler and Bryony, work through the aftermath. And Sally isn't gone; she finds herself bound to the world and her family, unable to move on until she deals with something that must be done first.

      At first, she can't feel or reach Gigi at all. Her daughter is too traumatized, and getting through the days and nights with heavy sedation. For reasons that aren't clear at first, Adele and Liam, while reachable, are at first too painful for her. Adele's youngest, daughter Bryony, is her initial path in to her struggling family. Bryony is puzzled, resentful, and alarmed at first, by her zombie-like cousin. The cousins haven't met since Bryony was a toddler, because of the estrangement between the sisters. Gigi has grown up on a conservation farmstead, eating vegan, doing morning yoga, and learning an amazing amount of biology. Her cousin has grown up in suburban Johannesburg, with a far more conventional education. She escapes the stranger in her room by spying on the intriguing, attractive next door neighbor, Lesedi Matsunyane.

      Lesedi, it turns out, is a modern, highly educated, but very traditional South African sangoma. She's running a consulting service from her home--against the Body Corporate rules--and she can see Sally.

      She can also see the black dog that represents the forces of darkness threatening Bryony and her family.

      As the story plays out, the conflicts and complicated emotional history entangling Sally, Adele, and Liam unfold, and as Gigi emerges from her fog, we begin to suspect she saw more than initially thought on that horrible summer morning.

      Black Dog Summer grabs the emotions and doesn't let go.

      Recommended.

      I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley.
    • 5/5
      Stand clear, I'm on a roll! Another awesome book about ghosts. I'm not sure what I expected from Miranda Sherry's South African novel, but I was surprised and enchanted with what I found - the ordinariness of family life contrasted with a shocking tragedy, lyrical language and haunting descriptions, plus supernatural storytelling. Sally, nicknamed Monkey, is brutally murdered at the commune where she lives with her teenage daughter, Gigi. Sally's estranged sister Adele and her husband Liam take the orphaned girl into their home, where she instantly causes friction between husband and wife and with her two cousins, Bryony and Tyler. Next door neighbour Lesedi, a sangoma (healer), senses trouble brewing - she sees a vision of a black dog in the storm clouds above the family's home. Miranda Sherry makes all of the characters so believable - especially the children - that the 'voice' of Sally, observing the effect of her murder upon her daughter and sister's family, is far more powerful than a literary device holding the story together. She reflects upon her childhood with Adele, their falling out over Liam, the shelter of the commune for her and Gigi, and the last moments before her death, but her 'haunting' is not restricted to maudlin memories. Sally has to try and keep her daughter safe and her family together. I loved reading about South Africa, from Limpopo to Johannesburg, which is all new to me, but I especially enjoyed the author's way with words, making the everyday sound beautiful. An engrossing and evocative debut novel, most heartily recommended.
    • 4/5
      3.5 I was not a big lover of Lovely Bones, and this book too is narrated by the recent dead, but for some reason I liked this one. I, know the atmosphere had much to do with this, it was melancholy and psychological but not without hope. The location too played into it, South Africa post apartheid when there was so much killing of the framers in the remoter regions of the country, in this case it was killing on a farm that tried to conserve and save the animals of this region. The culture too I found fascinating, the mix between the beliefs of the past and those of the present.Family relationships, the competition between sisters and some good characters that we learn much from in backstories. Lesedi, a sangoma, who throws bones and reads them in able to help her client. Gigi, a young girl who watched the murder of her mother and is now trying to adjust. But sometimes what one experiences comes back to haunt with terrifying consequences. Bryon, a young girl who will prove to be much wiser than her age.Although this is narrated by Sally, now dead, she follows and grabs on to stories and memory lines. Very interesting concept, and one that worked for me, very well.