Expert novel from first time author

If you’re tired of TV and watching over your kids for spring break, pick up a copy of the just-released first novel from 70-year-old author Linda Hutsell-Manning.

That Summer in Franklin is the story of two teenaged girls, Hannah and Colleen, who in 1955 worked as waitresses at the Britannia Hotel in Franklin. They find each other decades later as they are setting their respective parents up in a nursing home. They reconnect just as if time had never taken them apart.

Sharing their stories and emotions is easy but there’s other trouble brewing. While a young reporter is digging through the hotel’s history, he comes upon a mystery that needs unfolding. The caretaker was murdered during that fateful summer and it seems the two women were witnesses to what transpired. They’ve been holding on to their secrets for too long and soon realize the truth must come out.

Hutsell-Manning is a fine writer with numerous plays, TV scripts and kids’ books under her belt. I’m not going to compare this work to something grand and potent like Camilla Gibb’s Sweetness in the Belly but this still has a lot of heart. Reading how the two main characters interact is like being a fly on the wall listening in on natural conversation. The author has a good ear for dialogue and a strong sense of setting scenes.

The only thing I didn’t much care for was the lack of a chapter list at the beginning. Many of her chapters have the same title (i.e. Britannia Then) or similar titles (i.e. Colleen I, Colleen II). I’m the kind of reader who flips back and forth to cross reference stories like this. That was tough going. Otherwise, it’s a gem.

This is a book that takes you by surprise — a nifty little humanistic tale with a sly murder mystery weaving a thread through the middle.