After the surprisingly hard going of the last book I wanted something fluffy and light, and jumped on Summer Psychic, which centres on Jo Delaney, a reporter for a small local paper in Coffs Harbour on the Queensland coast. Still reeling from the car crash death of her boyfriend Andrew, Jo is unprepared for the declaration from interviewee Luke Gabriel that they will be married within a year. Luke is a professed psychic from Cambridge, and although Jo doesn’t really believe, he knows a frightening amount about her, including things she’s never told anyone about Andrew.
During their interview Luke makes a number of significant predictions for the year – as the year is 2006, the reader has benefit of hindsight and can make sense of such cryptic prediction as “Trouble in Tasmania. They don’t think they’ll get out alive, but they will. But one will die first… The miners. They strike gold but for the wrong reasons. The town doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry” and “Why are they killing the stingrays in September? There’s blood in the water… Crikey, why are they killing the stingrays?”
During the course of the novel Jo has trouble on the work front (the paper’s not generating a lot of revenue, and editor Paul tries to spice it up to increase sales), falls for a musician she’s long worshipped, becomes embroiled in a mystery about a coven of frightening witches who seem to be practicing bad magic and bespelling those around her, and begins to finally work through her grief. Oh, and she marries Luke, though more for friendship than for love.
I found The Summer Psychic a pleasant but not memorable read, and was reminded once again that an interesting premise is not evidence of an interesting novel. - Alex
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