View source for The Summer We All Ran Away by Cassandra Parkin

{{infobox1
|title=The Summer We All Ran Away
|sort=Summer We All Ran Away, The
|author=Cassandra Parkin
|reviewer=Kenzie Millar
|genre=General Fiction
|rating=4.5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|isbn=9781909395312
|pages=287
|publisher=Legend Press
|date=August 2013
|website=http://cassandraparkin.wordpress.com/
|summary=Page turner alert. Davey stumbles into the story, drunk, beaten and running away. He finds himself welcomed into a house by a mismatched group who are happy to have him, as long as he asks no questions.
|cover=1909395315
|aznuk=1909395315
|aznus=1909395315
}}
This is a summer of running away. Davey runs away from home, beaten and drunk. He meets Priss, a sixteen year old, who is also running. Tom and Kate accept them both into a huge, mysterious house, a house that doesn't belong to any of them. Thirty years ago, Jack Laker bought the house to run away from his superstar lifestyle. Young girls, drugs, and touring had caused him to take an overdose. As his agent tries to convince him to tour with the new album he has written, Jack meets a young actress at the house party being thrown in his honour. The same party he is desperately trying to avoid. 

Davey and Priss spend their summer trying to untangle the mysteries of Tom, Kate, and the big empty house. Working out other peoples' mysteries is, of course, far easier than discussing their own. The past invariably keeps coming upon them and posing new questions. What happened to Jack? Why is there a cage in the garden? And who is Issac, the man who appears part way through the summer to stay in a tent in the garden? With each alternative chapter, more questions arise to create a real page turner.

This is Parkin's debut novel and what a stunning debut it is. First off, it is a great mystery. The pacing is just right, with discoveries in both time periods coinciding and working together to keep any reader involved with the stories. But what I look for in any novel of any genre is characters. And Parkin definitely has characters. They are a great assortment: different ages, different backgrounds. And each with their own individual backstories that are all equally interesting. In fact, this is the first novel I've read with a character from Liverpool. 

This novel features storylines and characters that could be just too different. Despite these differences, however, the stories and back stories and characters all mesh fantastically. These are characters that you might not picture as friends or housemates. But that is the beauty of it. Parkin takes this mismatched group and puts them together in a world out of the real world. The house is a venue where somehow these strangers' lives all come together in a thought-provoking story. The storyline is original, the characters are fascinating, and over all this is simply a great read. I would have just liked more. 

For another novel that intimately follows the stories of summer, check out [[Summer of '76 by Isabel Ashdown]].

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