I'd describe June by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore as a vacation book: not too demanding or deep, with a good-sized cast of characters representing a fairly large cross-section of entertaining stereotypes, with a plot that's complex enough to keep the reader turning pages. I read it in a couple of days when I was feeling fairly miserable with spring allergies and it kept me entertained and occasionally surprised, and I do like surprises in novels. That said, I probably won't recommend it to the more literarily snobbish of my friends. I read it because I received a free copy from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review; pickings were slim at the time and this tale of hidden passions, unexpected inheritance, and scandalous movie stars seemed like the most interesting thing on offer. If it's ever made into a movie, I'll go see it. But I won't expect Shakespeare, and you shouldn't either.
The story begins in a neglected mansion, Two Oaks, where the heroine, Cassie, is hiding out from the world following the death of her grandmother June and a break-up with an artist boyfriend who could just as well have been left out of the story for all he adds to it. Two Oaks itself is represented as sentient in the early pages, which seems like it might promise some Haunting of Hill House-type thrills, but the house-as-character idea gets dropped abruptly when Cassie, who's been letting the mail pile up by the front door, finally answers the doorbell to learn she's inherited the entire multi-million-dollar estate of a recently-deceased movie star who made a movie in her hometown when Grandma June was a young woman.
Did June and Jack Montgomery have an affair all those years ago, and is Cassie really Jack's secret granddaughter? Jack's two daughters don't want to believe it, so they show up to demand a DNA sample, and wind up moving in, along with a couple of personal assistants, and taking over Two Oaks. That's not such a bad thing, since one of the assistants actually cleans the place up, and her uninvited houseguests get Cassie to stop drinking so much and start eating better. The unrealistic extended visit basically serves as a narrative device to let the possible relatives get to know each other and to allow time for extended flashbacks to the time June and Jack spent together.
It works pretty well. Cassie herself isn't very interesting, but her houseguests liven things up in the chapters set in the present, and the story of Jack and June is enlivened by June's tomboy friend Lindie, who facilitates their romantic assignations. If many of the other characters seem rather flat - the greedy, manipulative small-town developer, the neurotic, manipulative actress (there's more than one of those), for example - well, that's often the case in books like this. The plot keeps moving until the final revelation, and even after that, to a heart-warming conclusion that I liked at the same time that the more critical side of me couldn't help saying, "Oh, this is kind of sappy. But what the hell. It's nice." The author even allows the house a brief return to sentience at the end, to round things off. You know, like in those writing classes where the teacher told you to tie things up with a reference to the introduction. And it's okay. Not great, but not bad, and sometimes that's good enough.
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