Rating: 
Summary: Well . . .
Review: Although I am a big fan of Ms. Kearsley and her books, this one just didn't grab me the way the others have. I plowed through it anyway, simply because I wanted to give the book a chance. When I had finally finished it, I was happy because the chore was done! Kearsley's other books are much better, especially her first, "Marianna".
Rating: 
Summary: What A Great Read!
Review: I stumbled onto this book by accident, and I'm glad. This is my first SK book. I took to it right away, but my sister did not. While it was a little different from most action/romances I've read, I fell in love with it so quickly! Alex was one of the best characters ever! Wow! What a great job SK did making this guy irrisistable. Celia was adorable, too.
Part of what sets this book apart from others is that when we meet a character, we're never 100% sure what they're about, who they are, what they stand for.
Celia's friends were absolutely terrific.
This wonderful book proves that you don't have to have graphic love scenes to imagine Alex and Celia falling in love. They were true soulmates.
Rating:
Summary: A great writer!
Review: I've read several of Kearsley's books and this one is now my favorite, even though I love the other ones too. Kearsley did an excellent job of weaving past and present(both were very closely paralleled). The setting and descriptions made me wish that I could go to Italy. In addition, all of the main characters and their relationships with each another were well developed, so much that I felt like I knew them personally. This book was suspenseful and kept me turning the pages. I spent all of my spare time reading this book until I was finished with it. Kearsley also added some supernatural elements to this novel, which were a nice touch. The only drawback was that the ending was somewhat predictable; however, this was minor compared to all of the good points of this book. Overall, it was very well written. Susanna Kearsley is one of the best authors of the romantic suspense genre!
Rating: 
Summary: Mary Stewart returns
Review: If you like Mary Stewart, and you have been disappointed by her last few books, then SEASON OF STORMS by Susanna Kearsley should be a delight. It sends you back to the early Stewart works of THIS ROUGH MAGIC and THE MOON SPINNERS. The reserved relationship between Alex and Celia, and the limited physicality of it, limited to polite kisses, were so much like Stewart, I was tempted to check the author's bio again. Even the subtle mystery, based on theft and smuggling, was signiture Stewart. It was a delicious trip into one of my favorite authors, and recalled my first romances. This is a must have.
Rating:
Summary: Mary Stewart returns
Review: If you like Mary Stewart, and you have been disappointed by her last few books, then SEASON OF STORMS by Susanna Kearsley should be a delight. It sends you back to the early Stewart works of THIS ROUGH MAGIC and THE MOON SPINNERS. The reserved relationship between Alex and Celia, and the limited physicality of it, limited to polite kisses, were so much like Stewart, I was tempted to check the author's bio again. Even the subtle mystery, based on theft and smuggling, was signiture Stewart. It was a delicious trip into one of my favorite authors, and recalled my first romances. This is a must have.
Rating:
Summary: Intense Romantic Suspense
Review: In 1920's Italy, Galeazzo D'Ascanio was unable to see the performance of his wonderful play, Il Prezzo. Celia Sands, his beautiful English mistress and star of the play, vanished without a trace the night before the opening performance. Now, some eighty years later, Alessandro 'Alex' D'Ascanio, grandson of Galeazzo, has contacted Celia Sands, a struggling young English actress, asking that she perform the lead in Il Prezzo, a never performed play. The Forlani Trust is restoring Il Piacere, Galeazzo's magnificent villa on Lake Garda, and the play will be performed at an outdoor theater there. Celia isn't certain that she should take this role, since it appears that she is desired merely because she possesses the same name as the original Celia. But her mentor, pseudo-guardian and director Rupert does his best to quietly persuade Celia to take this part. And Celia ventures off to Italy and the disquiet of Il Piacere. The maid thinks that Celia's room has ghosts of its own even as Celia seems drawn to Alex whose comings and goings lend an air of mystery to the place. Add to the mix Daniela Forlani, whose possessiveness of Alex alludes to Francesca, Galeazzo's wife, who was jealous of his relationship with Celia. Written in the first person, SEASON OF STORMS is a top-notch suspenseful novel that evolves into a truly riveting read. The mystery is not in the form of cliffhangers but a more slow-paced discovery of clues that will fall into place like the pieces of a puzzle. Rich with evocatively descriptive language, SEASON OF STORMS will transport you to another place, where murder and ghosts are a distinct probability.
Rating:
Summary: Well-Seasoned Season of Storms
Review: Kearsley's uncanny technique of molding coincidences of the past with happenstances of the present is explored again with great success in her latest offering "Season of Storms". Here fledgling actress, Celia Sands bears the same name as the infamous lover of famous Italian lake district playwright Galeazzo D'Ascanio of the early 1900s. . . and now seemingly serendipitiously she is chosen by the deliciously understated Alessandro D'Ascanio, grandson of the famous playwright, to actually perform the lead in a recently discovered but unknown and unperformed masterpiece written by his grandfather especially for that first Celia. Upon arriving at Il Piacere in Italy, our heroine is initially fraught with many emotions, many of which stem from her fear of failure in the distinguished company of other cast and crew members. She must cope with the bald fact that legendary actress Madeleine Hedrick is playing one of the other leads and that the selfish actions of her own actress mother caused Hedrick's marital breakup. With regret, she notices that Hedrick's newest relationship with a younger man, the third actor, eerily parallels the action of the play itself-- the older woman thrown aside for a younger lover. And this is not the only coincidence, for as the actors prepare for that first performance, other mysterious incidents surrounding the play come under the scrutiny of a light from the past which floods the future of the inhabitants of Il Piacere, placing them in the wake of imminent danger.
Kearsley seems to have discovered that knack for combining a luscious setting, a questioning damsel in distress, and a contained mystery with a smorgasbord of tasty male morsels to create a tantalizing reading experience in the worthy tradition of Mary Stewart.
Rating:
Summary: Well-Seasoned Season of Storms
Review: Kearsley's uncanny technique of molding coincidences of the past with happenstances of the present is explored again with great success in her latest offering "Season of Storms". Here fledgling actress, Celia Sands bears the same name as the infamous lover of famous Italian lake district playwright Galeazzo D'Ascanio of the early 1900s. . . and now seemingly serendipitiously she is chosen by the deliciously understated Alessandro D'Ascanio, grandson of the famous playwright, to actually perform the lead in a recently discovered but unknown and unperformed masterpiece written by his grandfather especially for that first Celia. Upon arriving at Il Piacere in Italy, our heroine is initially fraught with many emotions, many of which stem from her fear of failure in the distinguished company of other cast and crew members. She must cope with the bald fact that legendary actress Madeleine Hedrick is playing one of the other leads and that the selfish actions of her own actress mother caused Hedrick's marital breakup. With regret, she notices that Hedrick's newest relationship with a younger man, the third actor, eerily parallels the action of the play itself-- the older woman thrown aside for a younger lover. And this is not the only coincidence, for as the actors prepare for that first performance, other mysterious incidents surrounding the play come under the scrutiny of a light from the past which floods the future of the inhabitants of Il Piacere, placing them in the wake of imminent danger.
Kearsley seems to have discovered that knack for combining a luscious setting, a questioning damsel in distress, and a contained mystery with a smorgasbord of tasty male morsels to create a tantalizing reading experience in the worthy tradition of Mary Stewart.
Rating:
Summary: Well-Seasoned Season of Storms
Review: Kearsley's uncanny technique of molding coincidences of the past with happenstances of the present is explored again with great success in her latest offering "Season of Storms". Here fledgling actress, Celia Sands bears the same name as the infamous lover of famous Italian lake district playwright Galeazzo D'Ascanio of the early 1900s. . . and now seemingly serendipitiously she is chosen by the deliciously understated Alessandro D'Ascanio, grandson of the famous playwright, to actually perform the lead in a recently discovered but unknown and unperformed masterpiece written by his grandfather especially for that first Celia. Upon arriving at Il Piacere in Italy, our heroine is initially fraught with many emotions, many of which stem from her fear of failure in the distinguished company of other cast and crew members. She must cope with the bald fact that legendary actress Madeleine Hedrick is playing one of the other leads and that the selfish actions of her own actress mother caused Hedrick's marital breakup. With regret, she notices that Hedrick's newest relationship with a younger man, the third actor, eerily parallels the action of the play itself-- the older woman thrown aside for a younger lover. And this is not the only coincidence, for as the actors prepare for that first performance, other mysterious incidents surrounding the play come under the scrutiny of a light from the past which floods the future of the inhabitants of Il Piacere, placing them in the wake of imminent danger.
Kearsley seems to have discovered that knack for combining a luscious setting, a questioning damsel in distress, and a contained mystery with a smorgasbord of tasty male morsels to create a tantalizing reading experience in the worthy tradition of Mary Stewart.
Rating:
Summary: drought
Review: pages and pages that hint of a depth that is never realized. one of those plow-thru novels that concludes suddenly in a two-page rush,a predictable two-page rush.
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