Read this review, and many more on my blog October Tune!

Those that watch Doctor Who will probably recognize this as the book Artie (one of the kids Clara was looking after) was reading, in the Bells of Saint John. Written by Amelia Williams, the Eleventh Doctor's companion. I was excited when I found out they actually released this story!

Summer Falls is about Kate, who wants do 'Get Something Done' in the last week before school starts. She becomes friends with her strange neighbours, a man who calls himself the Curator (which is obviously the Doctor), his cat, and a boy named Armand, whose father 'kills people'. Then, she finds a mysterious painting, and a ring, and then suddenly, it's winter, in September!

It's a very short story, only about 60 pages long, but I enjoyed it a lot. When I was on chapter nine, I remembered that in the episode Clara told Artie that 'Chapter eleven's the best, you'll cry your eyes out', so I was a tiny bit scared of what was going to happen. And indeed, the things that happened in the (small) chapter were sad (though I didn't exactly cry my eyes out, haha).

The story reminded me of a mixture of Coraline, the Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, and the Snowmen (the last two are Doctor Who Christmas specials), because of the cat who could suddenly talk in the winter world (Coraline), the winter world itself (Doctor, Widow, Wardrobe) and the Lord of Winter (the ice governess from the Snowmen). But that didn't make it a lesser story, in fact, I enjoyed it even more!

Because I don't know what to say about this short story anymore, here's two of my favourite quotes from it:

"Magic?" Kate snorted. "There is no such thing? Is there?" "Magic?" Barnabas (the Curator) shrugged. "Why not? Magic is cool!"

"[...] But a smell hung in the air. The smell of earth after rain. She sniffed, and somehow, oddly, she knew that she would never see the mysterious Barnabas ever again."

A nice short story, by one of my favourite companions (of course it wasn't really written by her, but shhh!) ( )

The parts with the cat felt a little bit like Gaiman. ( )

A fun, short little novella first seen on Doctor Who. I would argue that you don't have to be a fan of Doctor Who to appreciate the story, but true Whovians will definitely get more out of this one. I'm curious if the story will tie into later episodes of the show...

For non-Whovians, this is a story of a young girl who finds a magical painting and nearly causes everlasting winter. With the help of two young boys and a mysterious man who seems to live in his "shed" (an obvious reference to the Doctor and his TARDIS), the young girl must set everything right. ( )

This book was featured in an episode of Doctor Who. It's supposedly written by former companion Amy Pond/Amelia Williams and there is something important that happens at the end of chapter 10. Or is it chapter 11? I've erased that episode from my DVR so I'm not sure, but, either way I didn't find any clues to the season's mystery at the end of either chapter.
The story involves a young girl named Kate who has just moved to a small sea-side village in England. It's the end of summer. She lives next door to a museum. Barnabas, the curator of the museum, sounds an awful lot like the 11th Doctor. Kate finds a painting in a thrift store that depicts the shore, snow covered, and a man and woman. There are a key and a ring shown in the painting and a saying about how the Lord of Winter will return when summer falls. When Kate wakes up the next day the entire village and shore are covered in snow, the ocean is frozen and all the adults are gone. A mysterious talking gray cat helps her solve the mystery.
The story reminded me a little of The Dark is Rising. Short but enjoyable. ( )

Cute, magical and short. ( )

I wouldn't have read this if it hadn't looked like it could possibly be a clue to the mystery of the seventh season in which this book plays small part as a prop referenced briefly in "The Bells of Saint John." The authorship of the book is attributed to Amelia Williams (AKA Amy Pond), would seem to be clue, but darned if I can suss it out. If the narrator of the story, Kate, seems a stand in for anyone, it would seem to be Amy Pond, but it's hard to assign a character to the talking cat -- Clara? -- or is it just fanciful storytelling.

In it's own right, forgetting any connection to Doctor Who, I'm not sure this would be anything but an odd, if slightly charming, YA novella.

I think we'll just have to keep watching Series 7 and see how it plays out. I'm not Sherlock enough to solve the mystery from here. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2089465.html

Last week's Doctor Who episode had a child reading a book called Summer Falls, by Amelia Williams - obviously a reference to recently departed companion Amy Pond, that being her married name. The BBC have released this as an ebook, as was done with the Melody Malone book from The Angels Take Manhattan (The Angel's Kiss) last year. This time round, though, it's very definitely meant to be the same book that we see on screen (The Angel's Kiss definitely was just another book by the same name, not the one read by the Doctor and Amy on screen). It's an excellent spooky story of young Kate in a West Country seaside village in the 1950s (though the local technology seems to date it more recently), the mysterious tall thin fast-talking floppy-haired bloke looking after the museum, and a set of mystical objects brought together to isolate the village and revive The Lord of Winter. It reminded me a bit of The Dark Is Rising, not that I know that particularly well. We will see if it has any further relationship with this season's ongoing plot.

I see GoodReads reviewers complaining about poor editing, but I must say I spotted very few problems with my version downloaded on Friday; perhaps they fixed the issues in the meantime. My own impression was that this was a cut above the usual Who fiction for younger readers, both in imagination and in quality of style, and I was trying to work out who could have written it. But all is revealed on the last page - the author is James Goss, who for my money is the best writer of Who books around at present. I should have guessed.

And yes, Chapter 11 is a little bit sad. ( )

I enjoyed it. I thought it read like a combination of a Doctor Who episode and a Hilary McKay novel.

This is such a wonderful little book! It is presented in an episode of Doctor Who as a book owned by future companion Clara, and the author is Amy Pond (Williams) writing from the time period to which the Weeping Angels sent her. As an adult (and a Whovian) I loved the book. I think it would also be a delightful book for children and young teens even if they don't follow Doctor Who. It is a marvelous fantasy with a strong female lead. It's only flaw is that it ends much too suddenly and soon. ( )

Fun story-within-a-story referred to in the recent Doctor Who episode "The Bells of Saint John", supposedly written by the Doctor's former, time-stranded companion Amelia Williams (nee Pond). It riffs on Enid Blyton, but with the supposed author's modern sensibilities peeking through – serving both to acknowledge the writer's background and to make the piece more palatable to modern readers. I can't imagine Blyton giving prominent roles to an Asian boy and his father... The Doctor appears under a pseudonym: there's something pleasingly reminiscent of Paul Magrs's Who novels in the idea of the Time Lord's adventures transcending levels of fiction. After all, we're all stories in the end. ( )