My Summer of ’69 is a captivating memoir by Raglan local Penelope Gardiner that chronicles the start of a Kiwi girl’s adventurous 10-year journey during her first “Overseas Experience.”
In 1969, at the age of 21, Penelope Gardiner shattered the conventional norms of travel by falling in love and marrying a man she barely knew within weeks of arriving in a small seaside village south of Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain.
This riveting tale of youthful exploration and impulsive decisions will keep readers hooked from the very first page as they dive into her exciting escapades.
A former surfer girl before embarking on her travels, Penelope now calls Raglan, her favourite West Coast surfing town, home.
You can purchase your copy online from ThriftBooks, IPG Book Distributor, Bookswagon, New Holland, Indigo, BookScouter, TradeMe, The Nile, or Amazon. RRP AUD $27.99 and NZ $30.00, though discounts may apply at certain online retailers.
Book Review: My Summer of ’69
A memoir about a tumultuous relationship in the late ’60s in Sitges, the Spanish coastal town where the party never stops, the champagne flows and boundaries are pushed.
When Penny encountered the adventurous bar owner Tom Corley she found herself drawn to him despite her lack of experience with men. Instantly falling for the charismatic ‘man in black’, she eagerly embraced his carefree lifestyle filled with gambling, drinking, and wild escapades in Sitges, a vibrant Mediterranean party hub. Tom was a former US Marine with a shady past and his money-making schemes bumped up against the law, but that didn’t matter to Penny. He had captured her heart, leading to their hasty marriage after a chance meeting on a Spanish beach in the Mediterranean.
After a spell in his hometown of Dublin, they settled back in Sitges, where they ran a succession of businesses that, boom or bust, never quite managed to keep Tom out of trouble. The unpredictability of their life together kept her hooked for a decade, during which time she had two sons, until a last dodgy deal went badly wrong, and a dark undercurrent of violence finally became too much to bear. Then, for the sake of her safety, and her sons’, Penny was forced to run.
