Hello and welcome to the first book post of the year! I’ve been slacking a bit on reading this year, thanks to being pretty busy interviewing and landing a new job! But, I’ve still managed to work my way through a few, so let’s dive in.
Synopsis: They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart. Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without. For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart. When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past. Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic story of love and the people and choices that mark us forever.
Would I Recommend it: This was cute, but nothing mind-blowing. If you’ve ever read of any of these “reunite over a span of summers” type books, this lands somewhere in the middle there. It was an easy read and the story flowed well, and there was some spicy scenes! I prefer 28 Summers to this, but if you like this genre, you’ll like this.
Synopsis: It’s 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she’d never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past. Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair. As she begins digging into the past, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight, a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection. Just as Ruth is about to uncover a burning secret her family desperately wants to keep hidden, a heart-stopping incident strains the town’s already searing racial tensions, sending Ruth and Midnight on a collision course that could upend both their lives.
Would I Recommend It: I figured this out about halfway through. I think that made it fall a bit flat for me. It was pretty obvious what was going to happen and, in my opinion, there was no real big twist to justify the length of the story. That said, this author did a great job of developing the main character’s story so that you felt like you understood every facet. This one was just okay for me.
Synopsis: Early one morning on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery. When Owusu sends the evidence for examination, he learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead on the kitchen floor in a Chelsea mansion thirty years ago. Rachel Rimmer has also received a shock—news that her husband, Michael, has been found dead in the cellar of his house in France. All signs point to an intruder, and the French police need her to come urgently to answer questions about Michael and his past that she very much doesn’t want to answer. After fleeing London thirty years ago in the wake of a horrific tragedy, Lucy Lamb is finally coming home. While she settles in with her children and is just about to purchase their first-ever house, her brother takes off to find the boy from their shared past whose memory haunts their present. As they all race to discover answers to these convoluted mysteries, they will come to find that they’re connected in ways they could have never imagined.
Would I Recommend It: So, I didn’t know this was a sequel! I was wondering why I felt so confused throughout this. That said, I will say the storytelling was super suspenseful. It kept me turning the page, however the ending was a bit disappointing. I guess, after all that, especially knowing it was a sequel, I just wanted more. Perhaps because I didn’t read the first, I didn’t fully get it, but it definitely didn’t leave me with my jaw dropped.
Synopsis: Meredith Martin Delinn just lost everything: Her friends, her homes, her social standing – because her husband Freddy cheated rich investors out of billions of dollars. Desperate and facing homelessness, Meredith receives a call from her old best friend, Constance Flute. Connie’s had recent worries of her own, and the two depart for a summer on Nantucket in an attempt to heal. But the island can’t offer complete escape, and they’re plagued by new and old troubles alike. When Connie’s brother Toby – Meredith’s high school boyfriend – arrives, Meredith must reconcile the differences between the life she is leading and the life she could have had. Set against the backdrop of a Nantucket summer, Elin Hilderbrand delivers a suspenseful story of the power of friendship, the pull of love, and the beauty of forgiveness.
Would I Recommend It: Elin Hilderbrand does it again! I LOVED this one. It was such a beautiful look into adult female friendship as well as the intricacies of marriages, both good and bad. If you loved Firefly Lane or On Mystic Lake, or any of EH books in general, I recommend this.
Synopsis: Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s an associate specialist at Sotheby’s now, but her boss has hinted at a promotion if she can close a deal with a high-profile client. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos – days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time. But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news: It’s all hands on deck at the hospital. He has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste. And so, reluctantly, she goes. Almost immediately, Diana’s dream vacation goes awry. Her luggage is lost, the Wi-Fi is nearly nonexistent, and the hotel they’d booked is shut down due to the pandemic. In fact, the whole island is now under quarantine, and she is stranded until the borders reopen. Completely isolated, she must venture beyond her comfort zone. Slowly, she carves out a connection with a local family when a teenager with a secret opens up to Diana, despite her father’s suspicion of outsiders. In the Galápagos Islands, where Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was formed, Diana finds herself examining her relationships, her choices, and herself – and wondering if when she goes home, she too will have evolved into someone completely different.
Would I Recommend It: WOW. The twist in this book was completely jaw-dropping for me. I did not see that coming AT ALL. Jodi Picoult researches her topics like nobody else, and the central topic of this one was fascinating. It’s set during the beginning days of COVID and I don’t want to say too much else as to not spoil anything. I had some interesting conversations with friends who read this, and some said it felt a bit too YA, but I really enjoyed this one. I have read so many JP books, and this one is up there for me.
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