The Emilie Loring Collection

I’ve come to my family’s cottage on a chain of lakes in Wisconsin nearly every summer since I was five, and the experience never gets old. Same cottage, same view, same path down to the water, same trees overhead, and I still get the same thrill each time I arrive. Some places are like that. Some books are, too.

One of the most oft-read and re-read Emilie Loring books is Give Me One Summer and no wonder. It has all the ingredients of the perfect summer vacation.

Beautiful Setting

“The color magician had transmuted the islands in the harbor to chunks of amethyst, and set them in a sapphire sea. Against one of them the brass trimmings of the cruiser gleamed blood-red. The lighthouse was rosy pink, its great glass eye shimmered like a plaque of burnished copper. The ocean breeze was crisp with brine from the choppy water of the bay. What a glorious world.”

Relaxation

“The stillness was heavenly… In her sleep she had drunk at some deep, cool spring in her spirit and awoke refreshed.”

Freedom

“‘All my yesterdays have been dropped overboard. I intend to be madly, extravagantly, gorgeously gay… I’m a new person even before I’m in a new environment. Reorienting myself, I suppose you’d call it.'”

Time to Oneself in the Great Outdoors

“Beyond the long windows the sea sparkled an invitation. Heavenly day to shoot round the point in the flying outboard she hadn’t used for weeks. Now that she was the owner of an island she wanted to land on it, take formal possession, plant a flag. Why not plant the pennant she had won on the last outboard race? What fun!”

Summer Clothes

“She changed to navy blue shorts, with a top of gay India print, white sandals, and caught up the green and gold pennant.”

Social Occasions With a Touch of Glamour

“…this perfect afternoon had been made for the swimming party and lobster-bake.”

“’Miss Packard is marvelous in that swim-suit of sequins. It gleamed in the water like a strange tropical fish all shiny flame-color scales. That costume belongs to Hollywood, not here. Never before has anything so gorgeous swum in this pool.’ Her eyes roved on to where Cleo, in a black satin water frock, which was a perfect foil for her delicate coloring, was animatedly talking to Johnny Grant who sat beside her on the rim of the pool.”

Something Good to Eat

On the menu: Steamed clams, mackerel, lobster, butter, new potatoes, watermelon

“She looked at the white cloth spread on the pebbly beach. On it piles of green tin trays, paper plates, cups and napkins flanked glass pitchers of melted butter and pans heaped with clams that had been steamed till their shells gaped and their round, plump bodies were succulently tender.”

“’I’ll have some of the watermelon when it comes along. They’re cutting it now! I never saw anything so pink and crisp.’ He crunched his teeth in anticipation. ‘I’m glad there is something you can enjoy. Ozy cracked this lobster to perfection, Fenton,’ she approved as she accepted the tin plate with its crimson cargo the butler offered.”

Humor, A Light Touch

“’Johnny again! For whom is he whistling?’ She looked up from beneath long lashes and laughed. ‘Something tells me it’s for me.’”

A Bit of Mystery

“He tapped the map on the table with his forefinger and reminded in a low voice; ‘Somewhere within the area surrounded by those pegs is the person we’re after. I’m sure of it. And we are here to get him—understand—we are here to get him.’”

“’I’d like to know the stories woven through the life of each one of the tenants, wouldn’t you, Tod?’ she asked. ‘They look smooth enough on the surface, but I have a feeling that beneath some of them there may be seething retorts of emotion ready to blow-up at a spark, undercurrents sweeping them along.'”

A Good Story vs. A One-Time Read

Beyond providing an ideal, summer vacation environment, what elevates Emilie Loring’s novels above one-time reads is her ability to deliver the whole package: a well-crafted plot, an engaging writing style, relatable characters, and an uplifting theme delivered with a deft hand. Who gets tired of that?

Engaging Plot

Give Me One Summer puts a twist on a predictable story line.

"By all the rules of fiction, I ought to hate you violently."       
"Why? Because I have inherited this place? That’s the reason I didn’t tell you at once who I was. I thought you might be bitter because the property came to me. I wanted to make friends with you before you found out."     
"Of course I’m not bitter. Why shouldn’t your uncle’s property go to you?”

"...Now you understand why I said that according to all fiction rules, I should hate you violently. In novels wards always fight with guardians."      
"Sometimes they love them.”

Relatable Characters

Perhaps we don’t live in Maine or have our own lighthouses, but Lissa Barclay is relatable. We see her at an inflection point, and aspects of her personality come out in different situations and relationships. She’s been taking care of Aunt Hetty, the property, and the tenants; now, she has time for herself. We see her bitter relationship with her step-mother and half-sister, get a sense of her determination and diplomacy in the operation of Tarry Farm, her ability to set boundaries with Johnny, her sense of humor with Lex, and witness both her insecurity and her persistence as she embarks on her own and strives to become a published author.

“She felt terribly alone in the world in which from now on she would have to make her way, in which she seemed tragically unimportant. As if he understood, the dog flopped to the floor and laid his black nose on her foot. The feel of him was curiously comforting.”

“I wonder how often life, real living, I mean, begins with a death as mine has.”

“From early childhood she had ached to be a writer and while living with her aunt the chance had come to try.”

Dynamic Elements

The balance of story elements creates a dynamic and engaging story that is complex enough to be interesting on first and later readings. The settings and dialogues are so real that suspension of disbelief is easy.

Adventure

“A motorboat was almost upon her. Where had it come from? Had it dropped from the sky? Why hadn’t she heard the put-put? Why didn’t the dumbbell at the wheel slow down? Was it a villager or a summer resident out on a practice spin? Spin was the word. The top of something that looked like a head was visible. He was making thirty miles an hour, plus. She had the right of way. If she swerved the least bit, the one-man crew wouldn’t know what to do. ‘Sit tight, G-Man,’ she warned, as the dog, sensing danger, sprang to his feet. She regarded the on-coming boat with the fascinated absorption she might bestow on an inch-worm looping its way across a man’s collar to his neck. It was shooting straight for her! It couldn’t be! It was unbelievable! It was! It would crash— ‘Hi! Look out!’ she shouted. Kicked off her sandals. Grabbed the pennant. Jumped.”

Romance

“One knew the moment one looked at him that he was a man of power. Someone to hold tight to in time of trouble. She liked him. Tremendously. Liked him better than any man she ever had met, and she had seen him for the first time less than half an hour ago! She did need a guardian!”

Conflict

“As she took a step forward, Grant blocked her way. ‘You’re not going until you hear what I—’ ‘Your mistake. She is going at once.’ Carson’s voice and eyes were dangerously cool. ‘Who are you to say who will come and go here, Lex Carson?’ Grant demanded. Eager as she was to escape, Lissa lingered. Johnny’s face was an angry red. Alexander Carson’s had whitened. They looked ready to fly at one another’s throats. She must stand by and stop it. Carson said quietly: ‘I happen to be the owner.’

A Soupçon of Inspiration

"I still believe that the beautiful things of life are as real as the ugly things of life; that gay courage may turn threatened defeat into victory; that hitching one’s wagon to the star of achievement lifts one high above the quicksands of discouragement. In short, that it’s a great world to the valiant."

"Optimist, aren’t you?"

"I hate that word, because so many of the people who use it put a sting in it. Be honest, have you ever known gloom or depression to solve a problem? Problems aren’t solved that way. Instead it settles over one’s spirit like a fog and that fog attracts more fog and there you are in the middle of it groping for a way out, but if, instead, you keep in the sunlight of courage, even if a gale of misfortune blows you off your feet and whirls you along, at least you will have the thrill of seeing where you are going while you ride it."

Give Me One Summer

If you haven’t read it yet this summer, maybe it’s time.

Save the Date:

Our annual Emilie Loring Tea will be September 5, 2024 (Emilie’s birthday). Hope to see you “there!”

Happy Landings, everyone!