What do readers think of The First Warm Evening of the Year by Jamie M. Saul? Write your own review.

This book is about love at first sight, but it is not a sappy romance novel nor is it action-filled. It is more about characters who have settled for their lives and resist change. It is a sensitive, moving, character driven story about a middle aged man who is called on to be the executor for the estate of an old friend and finds that the departed friend had, before her death, arranged for him to meet a widowed friend of hers. It is very analytical story filled with inner turmoil and it flows along smoothly, even though some people may find the situations sad and depressing. Great writing.

There was much I enjoyed about this book, but initially I was tempted to put it down. When we first meet the main character, Geoffrey Tremont, he is a middle aged New Yorker who is content with his life as an actor doing commercial voice overs for radio and television. He is just beginning to feel vague stirrings of discontent when he finds that he has been named executor of the will of his best friend in college, a jazz musician named Laura, whom he has not seen in many years. In the course of settling her affairs, he quickly falls for Laura's best friend. Here is where I felt the disconnect. Do I know enough about Geoffrey at this point to understand or even care about his emotional turmoil? As the story unfolds, the reader begins to understand the self-doubts felt by each of the characters populating this novel. They all have decisions to make about goals, dreams, and how the pull of the past can shape the future.

I did enjoy the book. It was a pleasant, introspective read, best enjoyed by someone who can understand and appreciate a time in one's life when one wonders, ala Peggy Lee, "Is that all there is?"

I really wanted to like this book; after all, my favorite cover icon (an adirondack chair) is right there…on a dock…at sunset. However, I just couldn't warm up to this cast of self-absorbed characters and all of their various past loves and past lives.

There were two quote snippets that summed things up for me. The first, "Oh well, what's the point of having a heart, if you're not going to use it?," made me wonder why these characters were always mistaking their heads for their hearts. The second (found very near the end of the book), "I wish we stopped turning everything we say indisde out...Turning each other inside out," made me wonder why one of them hadn't thought of this sooner.

There were small, setting-related details of the story that I found very touching; but overall, this book fell a little short of hitting my reading bliss spot.

When I received this novel, I couldn't wait to read it. I wish I could say that it held my interest. I can't because as I read page after page, I became like the characters--stuck in the past with ghosts from the past, waiting for and hoping for something to happen, waiting for e-mails or phone calls, and ruminating about what might/could happen in the future. I found the characters unremarkable in a plot that lacked depth. Without hesitation I can say that this is not a book I shall reread, readily recommend, nor long remember.

Geoffrey, a 42 year old bachelor, is asked to be the executor of his friend Laura's estate. Once, best of friends, he hasn't seen her in 20 years. He meets Marion, her best friend, who lost her husband 10 years before and is still mourning. Both Geoffrey and Marion are in convenient relationships, but that changes when Geoffrey falls in love with Marion and convinces her to take a chance on love again. This book wasn't stimulating enough for me. A book for a lazy afternoon at the beach - quickly read and forgotten.

I liked this book at first. The author gets inside the head of Geoffrey in a very interesting way. Somewhere along the line, the book fell apart. Yes, it's a story about love. Love reflecting, love looking forward, tenacious love and love that is unsure and undefined. I think I understand where Mr. Saul was trying to go, but somehow it never took off. Marian was profoundly irritating and I wished, more than once, that Geoffrey had taken the hint and gone home. Eliot's loyalty, or whatever it was, his basketball, tennis, etc., kept him in his own little world.
The repetition of the Marian/Geoffrey theme held the story back and the ending was anti-climactic. I wished it could have been better. Mr. Sauls is an excellent writer who could have done better.

With only a few characters and in a short time span, author Jamie Saul captures many complex emotions in both fragile and solid relationships. This story deals with friendship at many levels and many types of love--love between siblings, parents and children, spouses and lovers. It is also a story of love lost and found again, but perhaps most importantly it recognizes how painful the grieving process can be. This book will resonate with anyone who has lost a loved one and the difficulty of letting go of the past. It is also a novel of redemption, grace and second chances for love in one’s life.

I did not enjoy this book at all, and only rated it a 3 because I realize that someone else might like it. To me, the book appears to be a cartoon without illustrations.The characters were self-centered and humorless. They lived in a privileged world where everyone is affluent and white, but they are loaded with self pity. None of them was fully drawn nor did they appear to have any true back story.