Summer on the Mountain by Rosemarie Naramore

Summer on the Mountain Reviews

• 
  Leiah Cooper

  A fun, relaxing read Summer on the Mountain was the perfect book for me to pick up today. After going out in the predawn light to plant raspberries, I came in hot, tired, and sore (and covered in mosquito bites – this humidity has caused a huge influx of the nasty little buggers!) After a long hot shower, it was time to relax. And this was just the ticket.Summer Windham loves her job working in an art gallery for her good friend and boss Gwendolyn Lawton. The only thing missing in her life is her painting. Her muse abandoned her when difficult clients put her through the wringer, trashing her self-esteem and self-confidence. Now, a year later, Gwendolyn is determined to bring back Summers Muse. And though Gwendolyn considers the Great Outdoors to be an anathema:“When I took my vows, I promised to love and honor. I never said anything about roughing it in the wilderness.”She sees an opportunity to get Summer painting again, and to get back into her husband’s good graces for running out on his sixty-fifth birthday (that whole “wilderness” thing), by sending Summer up to their family cabin to paint the cabin and lands that her hubby, Leonard, loves beyond measure. Summer loves landscapes – surely getting out into nature will help her find her center again?Summer is excited at the idea of visiting the cabin, though she worries that her muse will never return. And the fact that her first day there is, to put it mildly, an unmitigated disaster, doesn’t bode well for her summer in the mountains. The local game warden, Gwendolyn’s youngest son, Jarrod, manages to cause her to fall into the freezing lake, accuses her of being a burglar, threats her with arrest, and generally leaves her standing around freezing in her sopping wet clothes while waiting around for the sheriff to come take her to jail for a litany of offenses he thinks she has committed. Well, how was she to know you aren’t supposed to fish without a license?! And if the big jerk would just call his mom and check, he would know that she wasn’t a burglar! Sheesh.Devastating poaching, break-ins and robberies are bad enough, but being covered in poison ivy, suffering a nasty cold from having to stand around in freezing weather after a freezing dunk in the lake, and being chased by an angry mamma bear is bad enough, but the jerky warden next door is nearly as big a pain in the backside as all that combined. But when her cold passes to him, Karma is a beeotch. And my wicked grin made several appearances from that point on.This is the first book by Rosemarie Naramore I have read. I may not get around to reading any more of her books any time soon – so many books, so little time – but I did enjoy this lighthearted romance with an undercurrent of the terrible things that humans do to animals all in the name of profit. Jarrod comes off from the first as a smug, self-absorbed jerk of the first water (He jumps to the conclusion right away that, since she isn’t a burglar, his mother must have sent her as her latest attempt at matchmaking. HA! “Honey, you’re a good looking man, and as your mother, I love you to pieces, but sweetie, you are an arrogant. . .”). Talk about sticking your foot in your mouth! But his love for the creatures and the land is vividly drawn and believable – and besides, he may be an idiot, but he is a gentle idiot – and maybe not such an idiot at all (if he can just get his head out of up there where it is dark!)A relaxing book with suspense, mystery, some action, and a gentle, believable romance.Summer Windham loves her job working in an art gallery for her good friend and boss Gwendolyn Lawton. The only thing missing in her life is her painting. Her muse abandoned her when difficult clients put her through the wringer, trashing her self-esteem and self-confidence. Now, a year later, Gwendolyn is determined to bring back Summers Muse. And though Gwendolyn considers the Great Outdoors to be an anathema:“When I took my vows, I promised to love and honor. I never said anything about roughing it in the wilderness.”She sees an opportunity to get Summer painting again, and to get back into her husband’s good graces for running out on his sixty-fifth birthday (that whole “wilderness” thing), by sending Summer up to their family cabin to paint the cabin and lands that her hubby, Leonard, loves beyond measure. Summer loves landscapes – surely getting out into nature will help her find her center again?Summer is excited at the idea of visiting the cabin, though she worries that her muse will never return. And the fact that her first day there is, to put it mildly, an unmitigated disaster, doesn’t bode well for her summer in the mountains. The local game warden, Gwendolyn’s youngest son, Jarrod, manages to cause her to fall into the freezing lake, accuses her of being a burglar, threats her with arrest, and generally leaves her standing around freezing in her sopping wet clothes while waiting around for the sheriff to come take her to jail for a litany of offenses he thinks she has committed. Well, how was she to know you aren’t supposed to fish without a license?! And if the big jerk would just call his mom and check, he would know that she wasn’t a burglar! Sheesh. Devastating poaching, break-ins and robberies are bad enough, but being covered in poison ivy, suffering a nasty cold from having to stand around in freezing weather after a freezing dunk in the lake, and being chased by an angry mamma bear is bad enough, but the jerky warden next door is nearly as big a pain in the backside as all that combined. But when her cold passes to him, Karma is a beeotch. And my wicked grin made several appearances from that point on.  This is the first book by Rosemarie Naramore I have read. I may not get around to reading any more of her books any time soon – so many books, so little time – but I did enjoy this lighthearted romance with an undercurrent of the terrible things that humans do to animals all in the name of profit. Jarrod comes off from the first as a smug, self-absorbed jerk of the first water at first (he jumps to the conclusion right away that, since she isn’t a burglar, his mother must have sent her as her latest attempt at matchmaking. HA! “Honey, you’re a good looking man, and as your mother, I love you to pieces, but sweetie, you are an arrogant. . .”). Talk about sticking your foot in your mouth! But his love for the creatures and the land is vividly drawn and believable – and besides, he may be an idiot, but he is a gentle idiot – and maybe not such an idiot at all (if he can just get his head out of up there where it is dark!)A relaxing book with suspense, mystery, some action, and a gentle, believable romance.
• 
  Rachel

  Summer gasps forty-six times in this book. Nothing that she gasps at is gasp-worthy.
• 
  Nancy

  Very enjoyable book
• 
  SK

  Summer Windham is given the gift of a mountain vacation at the cabin of her boss, Gwen Lawton, the owner & operator of an art gallery. Her only responsibility is to paint landscape pictures of the mountain cabin and surrounding area for Gwen. Gwen, a through and through city girl, Gwen needs a fabulous “I am sorry I ruined your birthday” gift for her husband Leonard. Gwen believes Summer’s paintings of the area will improve things with Leonard and also help Summer re-start her painting muse, which Summer has suffered with for about a year. The reader and Summer believe this trip is “just” about Summer’s painting re-start, but Jarrod Lawton, Gwen’s song assumes, based on past experience that Gwen has solicited Summer to further Gwen’s perpetual matchmaking scam. Jarrod, a committed forest ranger conveniently lives next to the cottage. Was Jarrod set up or not, the reader is left to wonder. Within twenty-four hours Summer breaks two “rules of the mountain” by feeding the squirrels and fishing without a license. Because of various agendas, trust between Jarrod and Summer takes a little time, but by the end of the book, things are solid.
  This is a short, easy read. There is a little bit of mystery, a little bit of romance, and a story focused on the beauty of life. At the end, you are never totally sure that Gwen really was innocent about matchmaking between Summer and Jarrod, you are not sure if Gwen was totally altruistic about sending Summer up to the mountain to regain her painting muse. For me, this book was a solid 3.7.
• 
  Quinn Fforde

  Meh
• 
  Karen

  Typical love story
• 
  Lillie

  This is a light, fun romance with likable characters and a little humor. If you want to spend a pleasant relaxing interlude reading, this is a good choice.
• 
  Dorene

  Summer is an artist, who captures the beauty of things seen with a paint brush. BUT the last painting she completed shunned her painting anymore because the people were too persistent on a perfect piece. After several adjustments, she still never was able to get the exact piece right and for this reason she has not picked up a paint brush in over 10 months.
  
  While working for an art gallery, her boss insists that she travel to their cabin in the mountains and paint a picture for her husband as a surprise. BUT Summer is reluctant to go as she is certain she can not pick up a brush and achieve the piece in question. BUT after several minutes of banter she decided that a vacation would be nice.
  
  Jarrod, who is a forest ranger who lives on the same property in which his parents finds a stranger woman fishing at the lake by his parents property. Not knowing that she was sent there by his mom to paint a picture of the mountain for his father walks up and asks her for her fishing license. But the woman did not have one and preceded to tell him to call his Mom who would explain why she was using his pole, his lures and staying in the cabin that his parents owned.
  
  Little by little Summer kept getting herself into more jams that any woman could possibly endure in a few days, BUT Jarrod could not believe that this woman was sent to paint a picture and was not set up as a date by his mom.
  
  After falling in the cold lake, catching a cold, getting poison oak/ivy, being chased by a bear and almost being arrested Summer has had enough of the mountain....or though she thought. Could Jarrod's mother been playing match making all along or did she really want those pictures that Summer actually painted?
  
  Grab Summer on the Mountain...and read for yourself. I promise you wont be discouraged.
• 
  Mary

  I enjoyed this book because I could identify with the struggles the artist was experiencing, in getting motivated again, to paint. Living up in Gwendolyn's cabin on the mountain would be my ideal motivation.
  
  I could kind of see where this book was heading, as soon as I read about Gwendolyn's son, Jarrod, being a ranger in the area and when he lived next door, I knew how this story was going to end.
  
  Even knowing all of this, I enjoyed reading the book for the descriptions of the lake and the mountains and feeling her motivation to paint again. The love story with Jarrod was nice, but it seemed almost unbelievable that she would be so sensitive and run away back home, without talking to Jarrod. I thought their relationship was deeper than she gave it credit for.
  
  
• 
  Alisia

  I really enjoyed this book! I love how into the outdoors Summer was. I also liked how she wasn't interested in Jarrod or at least pretended like she wasn't and then you could see how her feelings grow. I also LOVED how they met! What I didn't really like was how when (SPOILER) Jarrod had to spend time camping on the mountain, looking for the poachers, the two were always rushed when he visited Summer. I liked that Summer had a part in finding the poachers
  Overall, I really liked this book. It was interesting and fun, with some sweet thrown in.
• 
  Carrie

  This was a lovely, clean, happy romance. The characters were likeable, the story was good, and I do like a clean read. But it was definitely cheesy in some parts. I think maybe it was a little too nice and that's what kept a good story (plot) from being a great one. Even the 'bad guys' were seemingly nice and hardly even seen in the story. I like a little more tension, a little more suspense...but the story was enjoyable for a light, fun read. :)
• 
  Clista

  This was a sweet love story. Summer goes to the mountains for a working vacation and meets Jarrod, the son of her boss. They have a rough first meeting, but then get to know each other. Jarrod is a Park Ranger and has poachers to find. Summer is trying to paint and explore the outdoors. The slow process and reserved ways they go about getting to know one another is sweet. It was a change from what I usually read, I enjoyed it. I did find some words over used. I always enjoy a HEA!
  
• 
  Bungluna

  This one could be subtitled "convalescence romance", since the characters spent a lot of time nursing each other. Not much happens. It's a bit of a fairy tale, with our heroine being able to take off from work to stay at a mountain cabin indefinitely and finding both her place and her love. To me it felt a bit like an old category romance, which is good if you're looking for a sweet (nothing beyond some kissing) story.
• 
  Lea

  After I got past the not quite right "forest ranger" type terms/references, this was an enjoyable, clean romance. Summer spends the summer on the mountain, falling in love with it and her neighbor the forest ranger.
• 
  Alison

  kindle
• 
  IUHoosier

  Cute, feel-good romance. Could use some editing and further character development.
• 
  Christie Pepper

  Easy read, cute clean love story. Great discription of the mountain terrain. Fast paced, hard to put down. Held my interest throughout. Very believable story
• 
  Lindsay Ewing

  Cute, quick, easy read. A mild love story set in nd around a beautiful mountainside. Wish I could visit this place!
• 
  Landy

  Cute story. Drag a bit with him leaving and coming back. And she realizing over and over again she loved him. Felt a little repetitive.
• 
  Amy

  Very predictable.
• 
  Adee

  More of a 3.5 star book. Clean, sweet, simple.
• 
  Brandi Fox

  Very sweet book. I hate it was so short
• 
  Lynn

  Good quirky dialogue chemistry between main characters. Fairly standard romantic fiction book.
• 
  Ashlee Haynie

  This book was light and fluffy and a little boring. I rushed through it as a result.