All readers have a few favorites that they tuck aside to pull out and dust off every few years and read again just for that thrill they got from the first time they opened this treasure.

This is one of those books for me.

Knowing that, you are going to have to imagine what happened when I was recently on The Mother Ship (Barnes and Noble) online looking up book suggestions for our August read for book club and I found a book titled Return To Summerhouse by Jude Deveroux.

I paused and reread the title.  Could this be a reissue of the book that came out in 2003?  Then I read the lines under the title…. “a follow up to Jude Deveroux’s best selling book The Summerhouse….”

I think I screamed in excitement from my home office.

I’m pretty sure I scared Al.

A sequel!  To one of my top reads of all time?  This was like a dream come true!  Haven’t we all had those books where you wish the author would have went further with the characters?  Or you wish that a second book would come out continuing on how the previous book ended?

Of course, I am not writing here about Return to Summerhouse.  This entry is about The Summerhouse which I knew I had to pull off the shelf and read before I read the follow up.

I love this book.  I think I love it mostly because of the strong women characters and of your the chance to go back to a point in our lives where we wonder if we chose right… and get to choose again.  Wow.  But – the review we had on this book in 2003 only adds to my love for the book as this I still believe was one of our best ever book discussions.  This was probably the first book we had read as a group that really made us open up to choices we would change.

Rereading this book for probably the 4th time… I am again in awe of this incredible writing and the unique turn this book takes unlike any I have ever read.  This book is a full 10 rating from me.

Now… to read the follow up…