The blurb and the story behind White Summer

'Six o’clock is the watershed, isn’t it? It’s the time we can crack open a beer in the sure knowledge we’re not alcoholics.’

Guy Chamberlain is getting drunk while waiting for life to happen. Then summer arrives and everything takes off. The breath-taking Daisy appears out of nowhere, his sensitive sister starts dating his best friend, his mother’s health takes a turn for the worse, and the exuberant ‘Kathy’ makes it clear she has marriage on her mind. Guy finds that once life starts, it’s not so easy to stop…

White Summer is a fast-paced and vibrant comedy that offers an hilarious insight into infatuation, sex, hangovers, dead-end jobs and making ill-advised decisions that come back to hurt. This is a story for those who have lived but won't learn.

The story behind it:

Luke wrote White Summer in just six weeks and it is set mainly in Gloucestershire, near Cirencester, where he lived with his family before moving to Oxford in 2006. Many of the local pubs and landmarks are featured in the novel and, according to Luke's Mum, half of the guys in the village are now in love with the fictional Daisy!

Luke was an immensely talented young writer and his work has been compared to Martin Amis and Nick Hornby. He tragically, and suddenly, passed away on 27th October 2006.

Why Legend Press chose it:

When Luke sent in the manuscript to Tom he said 'enjoy this with a bottle of wine' and that's exactly what Tom did - staying up late into the night reading it.  He found it to be vibrant, fast-paced and brilliantly funny, offering a satire on modern life, and knew that it would be perfect for Legend Press' first novel. It deals wittily with issues most adult readers will quickly identify with – infatuation, love, sex, alcohol, hangovers, dead-end jobs, families, and making bad or questionable decisions. The central character, Guy, is the perfect vehicle for this white-knuckle ride – every reader sees a bit of either themselves or people they know in him.