'The Last Wish of Summer' Book Review and Giveaway

Young Adult Contemporary
Title:Last Wish of Summer
Author: Phillip Overton

Date Published: 1/18/12

Synopsis:

As the sun prepares to rise on the last day of summer, three friends find themselves totally unprepared for the events that are about to take place around them. For Tanya it is a chance to find peace three years after losing her parents in an auto accident. Deciding she simply can’t continue blaming God for her loss, she places a heartfelt poem in a bottle and throws it into the sea on the eve of her birthday, granting her birthday wish to whoever finds it.

Early the next morning, her best friend Anton and his buddy Johnno find the bottle washed up on the shore and set about putting it to the test. When Johnno falls for the new waitress at the café where Tanya works, it stirs up feelings of jealousy in Tanya. Surely Johnno couldn’t be the man that God had in mind for her? Suddenly, strange wishes are beginning to come true, but is it all a coincidence? Or is God about to change people’s lives for the better?

Welcome to Kings Beach, where the forecast for the last day of summer promises to be hot, hot, hot, with a definite change in the air.


Read an excerpt:

Excerpt 1:

Johnno grabbed the bottle and turned it upside down. The letter caught in its neck. Then with a bit of prying using his car key, he was able to gently pull the letter from the bottle and let it fall onto the table. It lay there wrapped only with a small hair ribbon tied in the centre. Anton reached across to untie it as Johnno stood the now empty bottle back in the centre of the table.

“Well here goes.” Anton said as he uncurled the two pages and held them up for his friend to see.

The pages were cream in color, decorated with a border of flowers entwined along the edge of each page in black ink. At the top of the first page before the letter began, was a small turquoise colored love heart someone had painted, again in what appeared to be nail polish. It left a slightly oily stain around the edges which only added to the letter’s charm. Around them, the air filled with the scent of women’s perfume that wafted up from the page. With their curiosity now firmly aroused, Anton and Johnno huddled in closely and began to read.

To whoever finds this,
If I’ve washed up on your distant shore,
From a land far over the sea.
Please tread carefully on the morning sand,
And know you’ve set me free.
Wrapped in my mother’s ribbon,
This letter is but a token.
A plead to let her see the world,
From a young heart torn and broken.
A turquoise heart that was my Aunt,
Left footprints in the sand.
Her magic just a memory,
You now hold in your hand.
So I light a candle for my Dad,
But this gift I give to you.
He always told me to make a wish,
So today may all yours come true.
It’s time to live, to find true love.
Before the winter’s scorn.
Somewhere it’s always summer,
May my true love’s arms be warm.

P.S. Please return me to the sea at sunset.

**My thoughts**

I enjoyed reading this book. It is a story about faith and friendship. I think the most important lesson is to be careful what you wish for. So often we think we want something and don't realize how it can negatively impact other people. Each character makes at least one wish that causes problems for other people, despite giving them what they think they want. This may be an exaggerated way to get this point across, as this wouldn't really happen in real life. Or maybe it could? You never know what all of those little life coincidences really are.

I was surprised to see this listed as a YA book. It's not that the story has anything raunchy in it. In fact, it is quite clean for a change. YA readers need to hear its message just as much as adults. I just thought that a YA book would have younger characters. I hope adults still feel compelled to pick this up to read, because its message is applicable to all.

Author Bio

Phillip Overton's writing has been compared to none other than Nicholas Sparks (http://www.readerviews.com/ReviewOvertonAWalkBeforeSunrise.html), and his latest novel Last Wish of Summer offers readers the perfect book to sepnd a summer’s day reading at the beach. In a book that reminds us to be careful what we wish for, it manages to weave the wholesome, virginal qualities of the main character Tanya with her band of misfit friends in their pursuit of being able to reason why a washed up message in a bottle is somehow granting their every wish come true. Often in a manner that is both coincidental and strangely bizarre.

Just as a movie adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel will appeal to people of all ages, so too will this story that follows the adventures of a group of twenty-something’s on the last day of summer. The book not only manages to cut through any pre-conceived ideas we hold on morals, body-image and social status, but delights in helping us discover what may already be right under our nose to begin with.

Website http://sbpra.com/phillipoverton/

Twitter: @phillipoverton

Links to Buy (currently paperback only) Amazon | Barnes and Noble

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*Disclosure of Material Connection: I am a member of Reading Addiction Blog Tours and a copy of
this book was provided to me by the author. Although payment may have been received by Reading
Addiction Blog Tours, no payment was received by me in exchange for this review. There was
no obligation to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are entirely my own and may not
necessarily agree with those of the author, publisher, publicist, or readers of this review. This disclosure
is in accordance with the Federal Trade Commision’s 16 CFR, Part 255, Guides Concerning Use of
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