One Summer

by Karen Robards

published 1993

Publisher: Dell

High school teacher Rachel Grant believed in her student Johnny Harris’s innocence even after he was convicted of murdering his girlfriend. Now, 10 years later, he’s out on parole and Rachel has taken him under her wing, even finding a job for him. It isn’t long before their relationship changes and Rachel and Johnny become much more intimate. But when another murder occurs and Johnny is the prime suspect, can Rachel prove his innocence before it’s too late? Karen Robards defines passion in this story of love and scandal in a small Kentucky town. One Summer is an outstanding novel that readers will turn to again and again.

Johnny Harris returns to his small hometown of Kentucky, after serving a sentence for a crime he had not committed. Cruel murmurs occur behind him, but there is one person who treats him without hostility: his former school teacher Rachel Grant, the only one who is convinced of his innocence. The years of imprisonment have hardened Johnny, but they have not managed to subtract an iota from his natural appeal. And it is something that Rachel immediately notices, from the moment she sees him get off the bus, at the station where he has come to pick him up. Invaded by a strange sensation, she tries in vain to escape the penetrating gaze of her former student. Something has changed … Johnny is no longer that young boy …, he has become a man.