Kathy
Giuffre wants to escape from her stressful life working full-time and raising
two young children on her own.

When a
new boyfriend agrees to join her for a year in Rarotonga with her young sons,
she takes a sabbatical from work, books their flights and packs their bags.
Then at the last minute her boyfriend announces he isn’t coming.

In captivating style Giuffre tells what happens when she finds herself
alone with her boys on Rarotonga, a tiny speck in the middle of the South
Pacific Ocean, 11,000 kilometres from home.

She knows no one, the house she’s been promised doesn’t eventuate, and
almost every other outsider is on a ten-day package tour. Her unlikely saviour
is Emily, an 82-year-old Maori woman with a large white house on the edge of
the ocean, which the two women share with two callous missionaries, the
ghosts of Emily’s ancestors, and, briefly, a bizarre couple from Eastern
Europe. As time passes, Kathy is seduced by the island, embraced by its
people and by feelings she has never experienced before.

An Afternoon in Summer is an inspirational

book about searching for something better from life, and finding it

serenity,
sensuality, and ultimately love.