All Summer Long Novel Novels & Stories

Summer arrived on the Azores with a completeness that was different from summer on the continent — a warmth that was Atlantic-tempered, never aggressive, with the sea always available to moderate it. The island became more itself in summer. More alive. Elian finished the first draft of the novel on a Wednesday morning. He came downstairs at half past ten, two hours later than his usual descent, with the specific quality of someone who has just completed a long distance at pace and is in the first moments of having stopped. He sat at the kitchen table and put both hands flat on the surface and looked at them.

"Ugh. Do they never clean in here? It smells like something died. Oh wait," I laughed, a bright, brittle sound "Something is dying. It's just taking its sweet time about it." June didn't move. I circled her slowly, my gown whispering against the filthy stone. I'd chosen this dress carefully, deep crimson silk, the color of fresh blood, with gold embroidery that caught the torchlight and threw it back in fragments. I wanted to look like everything she'd lost. I wanted to look like victory.

Chapter II: Intriguing Cold August; Boston in Norwood, Massachusetts Van kicked the pebble off. He didn't intend to scare the stray cat, but he was just too pissed and annoyed. What are those kids blabbing about anyway? Just because he is a boy, it would be inappropriate for him to learn ballet. Those were bullies who had narrow and fragile ideas of masculinity.

Christmas was the reading of the book. This Christmas, Don's book was a novel—Norwegian, which was not a coincidence, a novel by the same writer whose essays were in the Norway reading programme. The novel was called The Dark Year, and it was about a man who spent a winter alone in a cabin in the far north of Norway, experiencing the full darkness for the first time. Don had been saving it since September, when he had finished the essays. He had placed it on the shelf above his desk, the designated holding place for the Christmas book, and had not opened it once.

Fate had granted him only a little daughter, now three years old, named Lotus. On one of those seemingly endless summer days he was poring over his books in the library. Overcome with the heat, his head had sunk down and his forehead lay against the edge of the table. As he dropped off to sleep he seemed to be wandering through an unknown dream-land. Kazuma sat nearby. II

Small library. There are many books in it neatly arranged on the shelf. Clean little library. And Bella loves it. It has been a long time since she read books because she was busy working every day. Bella raised her hand to reach for one of the novels released a few years ago. LOVE IN DUSK TIME Instantly Bella's eyes widened and her lips opened to a happy smile. This is the novel she's looking for! After a long time she gave up because she could not find a novel that was too late because it was out of stock. Finally in one of the many novels here.

Lena's POV Summer had arrived early in New York—sticky heat, long days, the kind of evenings where the city felt alive and restless. The Brooklyn Summer Music Festival was in full swing: three stages, food trucks, bodies pressed close under string lights and the smell of grilled corn and weed. I hadn’t planned to come. But Riley had dragged me out with a promise of “just one set, then we can leave,” and I’d caved because staying home meant staring at the same bookstore walls and thinking about him again.

I try not to beat myself up about it, I might never get to know the truth behind their lives and how I and Monica came to be with Mom and Dad not being here. But I meant it when I told Ian to release her allowance. She’s our father's daughter and he would want her taken care of even if she is a shitty daughter. But I suppose we could let her stew for a few more days. I flip the page of one of my favorite novels, Red Winter by Annette Marie. I’ve read the series countless times and it’s sort of a comfort book for me. My first exam is in two days, but if I read another word or equation about finance I was going to lose my damned mind so Red Winter it is.

Summer Love. I didn't think the summer part mattered. Sure we did fall in love during the summer. That doesn't mean I didn't expect it to last past that. It didn't matter to me that he was Nathan Kalis's school-bad boy. To me, he was just Nathan. The man couldn't go more than ten minutes before demanding a kiss. Who always wanted me to cuddle into him. And who loved listening to me read my books out loud.

The seventh month arrived without asking whether we were ready to stop pretending the future was still mostly theoretical. It arrived in the way my feet sat in my shoes. In the height of the child’s kicks under the sternum. In the continuous low demand of a body that had reorganized every priority around a single internal project and no longer pretended to be interested in my opinion. Summer had thickened into a late, heavy brightness that made the stone of the Alpha house radiate stored heat long after dark. I moved through that heat more slowly now, and the house—watched, watching—moved with me.