The Summer Breeze

Bed & Breakfast

By: Shail Rajan

Narrated by: Leslie Gray

Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Callie Williams is tired. Tired of her fast-paced life in New York City. Tired of the demanding hours of her successful career. And even more tired of her demanding fiancé. An unexpected visit and the discovery of a secret upend her life, and she is forced to make the decision to leave it all behind in search of something different. Something more.

Moving back to her parents' beautiful country home, Callie busies herself planning her younger sister's wedding and helping her develop a new reality TV show. But despite being surrounded by her loving family, Callie finds herself feeling increasingly lonely and aimless. She yearns to find a place for herself - a place where she can be her own boss.

After months of self-reflection, Callie makes the life-changing decision to open her own bed and breakfast, a decision that will bring her to the beautiful lakeside town of Seneca Springs and a major home renovation. Dealing with contractors and craftsmen, all while navigating the complexities of small-town life, will pose one of the greatest challenges she's faced. But along the way, she begins to forge lifelong friendships, eats more than her fair share of delicious food, and tries not to meddle in the lives of her guests.

As construction on The Summer Breeze Bed & Breakfast expands to include a spa, Callie meets Nick, a gorgeous, rough-around-the-edges construction worker who takes every chance he can to get under Callie's skin. Past experience has made Callie question her taste in men, but there's no denying the attraction between her and Nick.

A late-night delivery will tear them apart, but a quintessential nor'easter snowstorm might just force them back together....

©2020 Shail Rajan (P)2023 Shail Rajan

A great add to my commute!

The Summer Breeze succeeded where aromatherapy and candles failed. Listening to Callie and friends on my long drive to an intensive school program gave my days a little stress relief, distraction, and enjoyment on what has been a long, difficult journey. I appreciated the author’s vivid descriptions of food, conversations, relationships, and most especially, dorky women meeting handsome men.

changes

Callie has a lot of twists and turns in her life that lead her to opening a bed and breakfast. There is a lot of story to go with her trials and you also get the dynamic that develops with Nick.

Nice narrating and a good flow!

lame narrator

i didn't love the narrator. she read like a child and over-enunciated words. it took away from the story.

Light Hearted 😊

I found it to be a light hearted read. I wonder if there is gonna be a second book more revolving around there relationship?
4 /5 ⭐️
0 💧
0🌶

Music to my ears, great feel good book!

This book has been such a great stress buster for me. I used to look forward to listening to a few pages at the end of my day and it just felt lovely. It was the prefect escape from the daily routine.
Each time, I would be enthralled by the vivid imagery of the description and found it hard to put it down.
Words cannot do justice at how impressed I am with Shail and her writing abilities. The narrator Leslie also did a fantastic job and did justice to Callie. I highly recommend this feel good book, it will truly bring a smile to your face :)

to much details

The 1st 16 chapters are mostly just the main character giving an obscenely unnecessary detailed description of EVERYTHING she sees hears and smells. The entire story is lost in the overwhelming amount of details that just are not important. The story starts finally taking shape around chapter 17 but nothing truly happens that really pulls you into the story until the last 5 chapters. Its good but needs more character building and more interactions between characters and less observation details

The Summer Breeze by Shail Rajan

The Summer Breeze is an Excellent love story. I enjoyed it from the beginning to the end.

It was sweet

It was a bit cheesy, Harlequin style. It took way too long to get to the romance and not enough written about the contact between them to believe the love. Too many words in the descriptions at times. That being said, I did enjoy the story otherwise I wouldn't have finished it. I listened to the audiobook version and the narrator also has some work to do. she has a great voice but I felt she was reading to me, rather than telling the story. I seemed she hesitated at the wrong times, as if turning pages. She has good character voices, and I feel she will be a good one in time.

Great story about a fresh start!

Callie Williams was on the fast track in New York City. Great job, great apartment, great fiancé. On paper everything looks good, but she is restless. Something is missing, but she is not sure what.

Then everything unexpectedly changes and she finds herself starting over. She wants a career to be excited about, a life to be excited about, and she is inspired by the idea of a bed and breakfast. The Summer Breeze is both the name of the book and the name of Callie’s B&B, and the book tells the story of the creation of the B&B and all about the people in Callie’s life. I felt like I was on a mini vacation in the Finger Lakes for much of the book. I think it would make a great series.

I listened to the audio book version, and Leslie Gray was a great narrator. I could really picture her as Callie, but she did a great job with all the other voices as well. I would definitely recommend both the author and the narrator of this book.

I was asked by the narrator for an honest review.

Great companion for a summer road trip

The author’s pace of storytelling and Leslie’s narration was just perfect. The book is written in a visual style - I could smell and taste the recipes being talked about, I could visualize the places and the drama. Loved hearing about how Callie reinvents her life with the help of loved ones. At just over 9 hours, the book is a perfect companion for a long road trip or to snuggle with right before bedtime.