With rather fewer blog tours than usual this month, I was delighted I was able find the time to read the latest book from Laura Pearson, What Happened That Summer. Published on 3rd January by Boldwood Books, it’s now available as an ebook (free via Kindle Unlimited), in paperback and hardcover, and as an audiobook. The ecopy I read was my own, preordered and purchased for my kindle via Amazon.
You’ll find many reviews of Laura’s books if you pop her name in my search bar – she’s become a real personal favourite. You might have noticed that The Woman Who Met Herself was one of my 2025 Books of the Year – an unusual premise wonderfully explored, and a gorgeous, uplifting and life-affirming story I very much enjoyed – although I would have rather liked to have included all three of her books that I read last year. Her books always bring something new and original – and when I spotted her latest, I could tell it was going to be something even more different than usual…
You think you know what happened that day… But what if you’re wrong?
Everyone who was around in the 1990s remembers where they were when they heard that AJ Silver had died. In the summer of ’96, there was no avoiding the story that America’s biggest teen pop sensation had plunged to his death on a rollercoaster at a family-run amusement park in rural England.
Now, 27 years have passed, and – even if you’re too young to recall the event – you’ve probably heard AJ Silver’s songs topping the charts again. So what better time to take a forensic look at what happened that summer?
I’ve spent hundreds of hours interviewing everyone who was there that fateful day: workers, friends, family… the people who gained from his death, and the people who lost everything.
But you’re going to want to pay attention. Because I’ve found out a secret. One you’re all going to want to know… Perhaps it wasn’t such an accident after all?
A truly unique and unforgettable story, set in 1990s Los Angeles and rural England, with more twists and turns than a rollercoaster.
I rarely listen to podcasts, and the novels of Taylor Jenkins Reid and Colleen Hoover have rather passed me by – so I did wonder if I’d enjoy this novel’s unusual structure, a series of podcasts by presenter Danny Drake investigating the death of US teen star AJ Silver at a Birmingham theme park in the 1990s. But through the interviews with the two families involved – the Hunter family who owned struggling Wildwood, the life changing amount of money they accepted to allow the park to be taken over for the summer, and the troubled family life of AJ Silver and the impact of his global fame – the author has produced yet another wonderful read that totally engrossed me from the beginning to its perfectly judged and surprising ending.
Every individual is quite perfectly drawn. On AJ’s side there’s the pushy mother, the father left out in the cold, the brother with his feelings of being second best: and we track his rise to stardom, and the way his personality and behaviour changes for the worse. The Hunter family’s two teenage children both have very different feelings about the run down park that’s been their father’s life work, teetering on the edge of failure – and their mother can see the way the pressures are affecting his mental health, as he spends increasing time viewing the world through the bottom of a bottle.
The narrative structure works exceptionally well – a story told in the individuals’ own words, every one of them very real (if not all particularly sympathetic or likeable), involving the reader in their lives and experiences. There are no issues at all in connecting with them – something I’d worried about before starting reading – and the twists and turns of the different relationships, the devastating event that changed everyone’s lives, followed by the aftermath and fallout made for an enthralling read. The pacing of the story – its happier moments, its tensions, its surprises – is so perfectly managed, the whole book impossible to set aside as the full picture slowly and steadily emerges.
It’s one of those stories that defies classification – with elements of coming of age and family drama, a developing romance, an exploration of friendship, and a mystery around that pivotal moment that proves to be particularly gripping. The setting is spot on too – the attractions at the 90s theme park instantly recognisable, making you relive your memories of those halcyon days. And the writing is just superb – a unique premise made entirely believable, a fluid read that was entirely gripping. An absolute triumph – and a book I’d very highly recommend.
About the author
Laura Pearson is the author of nine previous novels. The Last List of Mabel Beaumont was a Kindle number one bestseller in the UK and a top ten bestseller in the US. She founded The Bookload on Facebook and has had several pieces published in the Guardian and the Telegraph. Laura lives in Leicestershire, England, with her husband, their two children, and a cat who likes to lie on her keyboard while she tries to write.
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