The Summer That Melted Everything

Tiffany McDaniel

Scribe Publications  (Paperback)

9781925321302

Description:

Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984: the year a heat wave scorched Breathed, Ohio. The year he became friends with the devil.

Sal seems to appear out of nowhere – a bruised and tattered thirteen-year-old boy claiming to be the devil himself answering an invitation. Fielding Bliss, the son of a local prosecutor, brings him home where he’s welcomed into the Bliss family, assuming he’s a runaway from a nearby farm town.

When word spreads that the devil has come to Breathed, not everyone is happy to welcome this self-proclaimed fallen angel. Murmurs follow him and tensions rise, along with the temperatures as an unbearable heat wave rolls into town right along with him. As strange accidents start to occur, riled by the feverish heat, some in the town start to believe that Sal is exactly who he claims to be. While the Bliss family wrestles with their own personal demons, a fanatic drives the town to the brink of a catastrophe that will change this sleepy Ohio backwater forever.

My View:

Sublime, poignant, lyrical, touching…

This book will quickly draw you in and mesmerise you with its beautiful prose. It will enchant, it will enthral, it will make you shake your head in disbelief and then you will reflect a little and sadly  have to agree…this could happen, this or something like it has already  happened…. somewhere, to someone…be careful what you say, words once spoken cannot be unheard.

This is a book that will have a profound effect on the reader (aside from the awe you will feel for the delicious prose). There are words, there are sentences, there are paragraphs and pages you will just want to highlight or underline and shout YES!!!  When you read this book there are two particular passages that stand out in my mind, analogies with leaves and another with roses, let me know if these spark brilliant illuminations in your mind, they did for me; beautiful descriptions, searing moments of brutal honesty and perfect understanding.

The writing here is remarkable…I predict…awards, awards and more awards for this incredibly wonderful and talented author. And did I mention that this is Tiffany McDaniel’s debut work? Seriously amazing!!!