An intricate story based on time travel. If you could alter circumstances in the history of your own family would you? Should you? There are still a myriad fascinating changes to be rung upon this idea, more paradoxes to be posed and more emotional decisions to be made. I’ll certainly never tire of it.

This novel reminded me of the themes of ‘Life after Life’ by Kate Atkinson, ‘The vanishing of Audrey Wilde’ by Eve Chase, ‘11/22/63’ by Stephen King and ‘The Time Traveller’s Wife’ by Audrey Niffenegger. The ‘we can fix it’ idea occurs in movies too; the ‘Back to the Future’ series, ‘About Time’ by Richard Curtis, ‘Source Code’ by Ben Ripley. ‘The Summer of Impossible Things’ would make a great movie itself with the background of the making of the ‘Grease’ movie and all those iconic styles in speech, fashion and music.

There are several strong and likeable females in this story and that’s always a plus for me. I don’t think I’ve read anything by Rowan Coleman before and I see there’s a great long list – I may be some time…

Thank you to the publisher, Ebury Press, and Netgalley for the ARC. I apologise now for the lateness of this review - I did read the book before it was published on 29th June, but then I got distracted by life. Bad book blogger!

The Summer of Impossible Things is a beautiful story about a strong, determined young woman trying to right the wrongs of the past. Not her past, but that of her mother's.

Luna and her sister have lost their mother to depression. They travel to the place she grew up in Brooklyn, NYC, and Luna discovers a way she can maybe save her. Time travel may be impossible, but the author writes with such sensitivity and depth that suspends all disbelief, and she draws you into Luna's life. From the way Luna's transitions through time are described, to the heat of the summer; the atmosphere and the smell of the old properties; the story is brought to life in the reader's mind.

The theme of depression is handled well, and it shows how those around the sufferer suffer too. There is also an element of whodunnit, which I got totally wrong (I don't like it when I do get it right as that would mean it is far too obvious!). The story is heart-breaking in parts, but ultimately uplifting.

Beautifully written and totally heart breaking . Really loved it

This is a superb novel about love of a daughter for a parent, a sister, a step=father, and the time-slip, time-travel and impossible things. Luna, and Pia are in USA to sell the house their mother owned with her sister. Strange things keep happening, and they are mourning the loss of their mother to suicide.
It turns out that their mother was raped, but not by the person they think has done it. Luna is anxious that if she sorts it all out that she will disappear. It is by turns, scary, tension filled, and makes you want to read on, and on. I read it in two sittings, because I wanted to find out what happened, but then did not want to let go of the chaaacters in it. Wonderful, and a joy to read.

Thanks first to Netgalley and Ebury Publishers for my copy of this ebook. I have never come across Rowan Coleman before so had no expectations which was further compounded by the fact that I didn't read the blurb. I do not outline the plot in my reviews as I believe that if you want to know what happens you will choose to read aforementioned blurb. However, I will point out that this is a time travel novel and to be honest that would possibly have put me off if I'd known in advance but I needn't have worried as this was handled beautifully and causes no confusion whatsoever.

I loved the characters and got caught up in the plot pretty early on. The story line was beautifully handled and the outcome was reasonably believable and what I wanted as the conclusion although I was never sure how Coleman was going to manage this.

I wanted to read on every night to find out what happened next but at the same time I had to pace myself so that I didn't finish it too quickly as I knew it would be one of those books that I was going to miss once I'd finished it. And I do...

I am not really sure what category this story falls into so I am going to say it is a thrilling family drama with history, mystery, time travel and love, what more could a reader ask for? I will certainly be looking out for this author in future.

It took a little while to get into this book but once I did I was immersed. It transported me and Luna back to the summer of 1977. It was like nothing I have read before it had a bit of everything - drama, romance, intrigue. Did not want it to end. Highly recommended.

I just loved this book. It is everything i look for; a bit of mystery, romance, intrigue and time travel!
It was very well written and moved at a great pace.
The story of Luna & Pia looking for the truth behind why their mother commits suicide takes them to Brooklyn & from here time travel slips in.
Luna finds herself going back in time 30 years to the days of her mother's youth trying to find out the truth of her parentage.
Just brilliant!

This is one of those books that I would pick up without reading the blurb, in this instance requested it because it was recommended by Jodi Picoult which is one of my favorite author, plus that fab cover, of course. It is my first Rowan Coleman book so I didn’t know what to expect, I just know it will be something different as it revolves around time travel, a really fascinating subject if I may say. I love The Time Traveler’s Wife so I’m really excited digging into this. With fantasy, romance, some drama, and history, this turned out to be one compelling read. The Summer of Impossible Things is without a doubt a beautifully written tale about love in all its form with great characters that will surely warm your heart. A story that defies the impossible by making things possible. In this case, changing the past. Truly magical, captivating and satisfying read, it will evoked some emotions while you’re reading it and will leave you warm and fuzzy after.

The Summer of Impossible Things

This is a beautifully written book that I absolutely loved. I think that it'll be one of 2017's top reads! It's one of those books that will stay with you always; compelling, poignant and wonderfully absorbing. If I could give more than five stars, I would!

I couldn't resist downloading this one because of the beautiful cover, the clever title, and the fact that it is about time travel! I read so many books it is a joy to find something that's just that little bit different!

Luna has always known she's a bit odd. She's grown used to seeing people that no one else can, and assumes they're either hallucinations or ghosts. Then her mother dies, leaving a cryptic message for Luna to 'find her' in her childhood home - Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Yet when Luna arrives in America her hallucinations grow worse. But what if they're not hallucinations? What if she has the ability to slide through time? What if she can meet her mother, just before the moment that ruined her life? What if Luna can actually go back and change the past?

The Summer of Impossible Things is part The Time Traveller's Wife, part Back to the Future. It's about a daughter's love for her mother and how one moment can change your life - but what if you can change it back? And if you muck that up, can you try again? And what about the consequences?

It's hard to talk about this book without revealing spoilers. So I'll just say that I loved the characters and I loved the setting, and I particularly loved Mrs Finkle and Michael. I even loved the way the author sneakily played the writer's equivalent of the three card trick when I wasn't paying attention!

The Summer of Impossible Things is a beautiful, magical story that I didn't want to put down and I certainly didn't want to end. There's a romance and a mystery, and just when you think you've worked out how the story is going to end - well, no spoilers, right?

One of my favourite reads this year. Recommended!

Beautiful and evocative writing and an incredibly fast-paced story, slipping between recent time and 1977, made this book unputdownable. I was so lucky to be reading it on a languidly hot summer’s day when I had no plans other than to sit in the garden and devour it! The hot summer of 1977 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn is so well evoked you can almost see the steam rising from the gratings. And who has not wished they could meet their own parents as once they were, young and beautiful, to interact with them and participate in their life somehow? And if that life was destroyed by youthful circumstances that perhaps could be changed by a time-travelling daughter, who would (or wouldn’t!) do all they could to alter the course of that history? Can love conquer all? Can love cross a generation? Read this thought-provoking book and decide.
Highly recommended.

Before reading any further, go turn on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack!

I didn't really know what to expect when I picked up the book. I though the synopsis was interesting and it pulled me in. I did not expect such a wonderful, heartfelt story about mothers and daughters and family love. Plus, time travel and disco!

The setting in Brooklyn, and especially in 1970's Brooklyn, was so fun. There's such a rich history there and Coleman really brings it to life. Reading the descriptions of the 1970's made it feel more vibrant and colorful than today.

I liked Coleman's use of time travel. There are so many theories about how it could work and I like that she just made her own rules and stuck to them. I didn't feel like there were any plot holes or paradoxes.

The beginning was a little slow as all the pieces had to come together. But once that happened, I couldn't put the book down. It was incredibly well-paced with no unnecessary filler or distracting bits. The story sucked me in and I could barely turn pages fast enough to find out what was going to happen next!

Luna was an excellent main character. The love she has for her mother just shines through the pages. I love how selfless she is, and how she learns to take a little time for herself. She also cares for her sister, Pia, who is recovering from drug and alcohol abuse. We see how their mother's depression and eventual suicide affected them throughout their lives.

What really got me emotional was when Luna gets to interact with her mother again, as a young woman. How cool would that be? Luna got to see the vivacious and happy person her mother was before the huge tragedy that takes place, and it is knowing and seeing that which makes her determined to change the past.

Plus, the ending of the book was so good and satisfying. I love a happy ending and this one just worked.

All in all, a real gem of a book. I'd highly recommend!

In The Summer of Impossible Things, Luna is struggling to understand recent events and decides a trip into her mother’s past might help. She just doesn’t think that her trip to New York in 2007 will see her slip through time into the summer of 1977 where she will if she can attempt to rewrite the past.
The summer that the movie crew Saturday Night Fever came to town and Luna’s father meets her mother. He is an official photographer for the movie and she happens to live in the area. A summer of love. But something happens in that summer that colours their lives and that of their children. Luna is in a unique position to find out what unless she gets distracted by a love of her own.
This is a fun book with a serious undertone as it looks at how our lives can be shaped by events that will never leave us. Luna is a 30-year-old whose own life has been affected by a trauma and she thinks she might be going mad when she revives her childhood gift of seeing people and places who don’t exist.
If Rowan was watching Quantum Leap with the rest of us it certainly stirred something inside and she also wants to ‘put right what once went wrong’ leaving us with a real buzz at the end of The Summer of Impossible Things.
This is a gorgeous and joyous book which has just enough of a serious edge to give it more weight than the average love-fantasy. I was drawn in by the time-travel aspect but I enjoyed the whole thing which Coleman does more to resolve than the average Doctor Who timey-wimey experience. It’s not for everybody but it does have a feel-good factor that makes it worth seeking out for summer.

Not the best read, hard to get into. Gave up at 25%

I’d heard good things about this book, and The Summer of Impossible Things didn’t disappoint.

Luna has been seeing things, impossible things, for a while. She thinks she might be going mad, or perhaps have some physical issue like a brain tumour. When her mother, Marissa (Riss), passes away Luna does her best to ignore the strange episodes and instead she and her sister, Pia, travel to Brooklyn to sell their mother’s childhood home. Seeing the house, however, only makes the impossible things appear stronger until Luna is time travelling back to 1977.

Luna knows quite a bit about the summer of 1977. She knows Hollywood was filming Saturday Night Fever around her mother’s local neighbourhood. She knows her mother met and fell in love with her father while he was working as a photographer on the set. She knows Brooklyn residents were in a mild panic over the Son of Sam serial killer. She knows they were also in the middle of a heatwave that would cause a major power outage. But what she doesn’t know is that her mother became a victim of a horrific crime during the blackout.

Coleman reveals not only the details of the crime gradually, but its after effects. Everyone in Riss’s life -- her sister, her father, her husband, her two daughters -- suffers because of this one moment in time. Luna decides, therefore, she must save her family by travelling back to 1977 to change that moment by preventing the crime happening in the first place.

As writers of the time travel genre like to point out, there’s always a consequence to changing the past. Each time Luna returns to the present, she is met with the changes she’s made happen. Some good, but some heartbreakingly sad. Coleman’s pacing and the placement of the sequences showing the repercussions of Luna’s ‘meddling’ was just right. I also loved the way the differences started small and grew more significant with each visit Luna made, building the tension beautifully.

I devoured this book, desperate to find out how things would turn out for Luna in the present day. And, although I did guess one outcome, the ending tied up all the threads to my satisfaction.

If I could change one thing about the book it would be to include more present day scenes featuring Michael, the man Luna finds herself falling for in 1977. I think his and Luna’s age difference etc, could have made interesting and (even more) teary reading. It’s not a big deal though and most people would probably say the romance was perfect as is.

I highly recommend this unexpectedly charming book.

5 out of 5

I love Rowena Coleman so I was really looking forward to this book. it didn't disappoint. Like her previous books this was an emotional roller of a book, that almost left me drained, but in a good way. I felt the characters were beautifully drawn, and resonate with the reader making them engage and care about them. None of us know how far we would go for the ones we love, Luna's relationship with her mother is just beautiful if heart wrenching at times, This is a well written book that will captivate you, take on Luna's journey and make you question what you would do. A magical novel.

This is the story of Luna and her journey to save her mother from the fallout of things that happened to her in 1977. Its a wonderful story of time travel and love. I confess I found this concept a little difficult to grasp initially but it wasn't long before I became completely immersed in this truly magical tale. Cleverly woven, brilliantly told, deliciously different and highly recommended. One of my top reads this year. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity of reading this beautiful book!

Back of the book :

If you could change the past, would you ?

It’s only after her mothers death that Luna discovers the secrets she has been hiding for thirty years.

Now she and her sister must travel to their mothers childhood home and settle her affairs.

But, in Brooklyn something impossible happens to Luna. She finds herself in 1977, face to face with her mother as a young woman, in the week that changed her life forever.

To save a life, would you sacrifice your own ?



What I think :

Luna’s mum has just died. But before she died she told Luna a huge secret. This secret is as big as it gets. To find out some answers to a few of her questions, Luna and her sister Pia must go to Brooklyn, New York, the place where her mum grew up, and met their father Henry. Whilst there they also need to settle her mums affairs.

Amongst all of this, Luna is trying to cope with her sister, Pia, who is a recovering alcoholic and drug taker. But perhaps the biggest thing of all, is that odd things have started to happen, she’s started to see things that aren’t there, and it appears she can travel in time ! and somehow she’s found herself back in the summer of 1977 with her mum and all of her friends !

Can Luna change things for her mum at the biggest time of her life and possibly lose her own ? or should she just let nature take its course ?

I really love Rowans books, they hold a really special place in my heart – if it wasn’t for Rowan and her lovely novel “The Memory Book” I probably wouldn’t have started reviewing and blogging.

This is a wonderfully written, bittersweet story about families and the heartbreak that long hidden secrets can cause. I really love the way that Rowan builds her characters to really make them jump out of the page and become real.

I read this book in a matter of days, I just couldn’t put it down, however I did slow down a bit at the last few chapters as I really didn’t want this one to end.

I have never believed in anything ‘Supernatural’ or time travel etc, however the story was written in such a way that it had me believing in the impossible, and wishing that perhaps it might be nice to have this ability and go back and visit loved ones that have passed on.

This is a book that I really enjoyed, right from the first page to the last and its a book that will stay with me for quite a while, and yes I did cry at he ending !!

Go out and buy this book NOW !!

I give this brilliant book a very well earned 10/10 (5 Stars)

If you could change the past would you....and should you? This is the dilemma Luna finds herself facing after the death of her mother. It's only in her death that Luna learns of a traumatic incident in her mothers life, one that directly affects Luna herself. So Luna and her sister visit Brooklyn, where their mother grew up both to tie up loose ends and to learn more about the enigma she was. It's here something strange happens, Luna finds herself meeting her mother....in 1977. Against a backdrop of the fear and excitement of The Summer of Sam and explosion of disco Luna is given the chance to change the future, and maybe save her mother.

The Summer of Impossible Things is just a fantastic story. It has everything you could hope for - intrigue, romance and fantasy. Although it's main plot device is sci fi this isn't a sci fi book. It's a heartfelt and touching tale of how love affects us daily, whether that be a mothers love, a daughters or a romantic love. It's well characterised and kept my attention throughout. a great summer read.

Thanks to Netgalley for this ARC for an honest review.

This book is such an enjoyable read, engaging from the start and a clever combination of science fiction with romance. Luna and her sister, Pia, travel to Brooklyn to sort out their mother's affairs after her traumatic death, and it is there, in Bay Ridge, that they learn more about her past, the identity of Luna's father and extraordinary things start to happen. I was totally caught up in this wonderful tale, which is beautifully written and well researched for period detail, and although the ending was surprising and satisfying, I now miss Luna in my life.
I have already recommended it (on publication day) to a friend who wanted a good book to load on her kindle, and I'm happy to recommend it more widely.