"Strawberry Summer" by Melissa Brayden

Strawberries are the ultimate summer treat or simply a way of life? If you live in Tanner Peak in small town California, strawberries are all around, as in ALL around - strawberry farms, fields and farmers and The Peaks Berries festival with strawberry cake, salat, salsa, milk, ice cream, doughnuts, soup, marmalade, fried ....   STOP we are going to need someone like ... a strawberry mentor to get around this much strawberry.  

Don't worry Melissa Brayden has one picked out for us, Margaret Beringer or rather just Maggie the daughter of the largest producer of strawberries in the county, she'll do just fine in easing us into the strawberry way of small town life. So let's get on with it, the everyday life of Maggie and her family and friends or perhaps we should stick to learning the trade of strawberry picking? Whatever you chose to do, you'll probably get to meet Courtney Carrinton the daughter of the owner of Tanner Peaks new and first department store, who takes a shine to our strawberry mentor Maggie, and that's really what all this strawberry is about, the ups and downs of first love and what follows as life happens to Maggie and Courtney. 

So this i YA as in high school friends, first love, making out and coming out to family and friends, it's  an adult romance as in the ups and downs of relationships and making up your mind about your life values, how, where and with whom you want to live your life and ultimately if you are going to fight for what you want the most. 

The strawberries are a nice and sweet touch to the storyline, but strawberries are easy to spoile and I'm not convinced that they survive the lengthy flashback way of storytelling in "Strawberry summer" or even if the rich taste of the ripe strawberry match the depth or rather lack of such in the romance. On the other hand, you could read this just for the strawberries, they are magnificent!

You should know that I was treated to a free copy of "Strawberry Summer" by Bold Strokes Books.