Colleen McCullough

“The pall of dust which came with every summer filled the silent air, and the sun thrust its fingers through the fine-strung particles so that it seemed the whole world had turned to gold and purple. Streaky clouds rimmed in brilliant fire poked silver streamers across the great bloody ball which hung just above the trees of the far paddocks.”

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Penelope Lively

“It is hot. The summer is by now becoming legendary, a news item in its own right. Toppling records, incipient drought. Swarms of jellyfish in the channel, basking sharks off the Cornish coast, ice-cream sales at an all-time high, melanoma warnings with the weather forecast. One summer’s day rolls into the next, indistinguishable days in which it is light still at ten o’clock, then the sky starts to drain and within a short while it is a strange dark electric blue, and the trees and hedges are shadows in a monochrome landscape.”

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Beloved

Toni Morrison

“The crickets were screaming on Thursday and the sky, stripped of blue, was white hot at eleven in the morning.”

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Alex Garland

“Without a sea breeze or cool water, the heat was incredible. By the time I reached the waterfall my whole body was prickling with sweat.”

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Francoise Sagan

“It was 3:00 and the heat was overpowering. I was lying on the sand half asleep when I heard Cyril calling to me. I opened my eyes; the sky was white, shimmering with heat. … I was nailed to the sand by all the strength of the summer heat — my arms were like lead, my mouth dry.”