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minapa's review against another edition
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
tamtalksbooks's review
2.0
Overall a cozy ready. It was a good storyline, with slow and steady discovery of a mystery. Glad I read it, enjoyed the ride, but I don't think it was very memorable.
theliterateleprechaun's review
4.0
You’ll want to grab a cold drink before you start this one! It’s set in Cambridge during the long hot summer of 1976 and jumps ahead to 2003 and 2018. It’s a family mystery involving a long-kept secret and a bundle of old letters and centers around Summer House in rural Suffolk and Cambridge University Library.
Like the author, I often look at old homes and think about the voice of the past. If you are with me, you’ll often hear me say, “...if only those walls could talk…the secrets they’d share!” This was a special book about an estate home, Tristan Somers’ family home, and the secrets held within its walls. It’s also about a girl making a difficult decision with few options.
In this atmospheric novel, author Rachel Burton explores grief, trust, mental health and abandonment. The characters are well-crafted and the struggles they work through and how they work through them are authentic. In fact, it’s rare to have a bookish relationship such as Olivia and Jacob’s and I applaud the author in taking this rarely trodden path. Well balanced emotionally with seamless dovetailed timelines between a mother and her daughter, this is a compelling read about the twists in one’s path and how we deal with them in order to move forward. You’ll be left reminded that judging without knowing the whole story is detrimental to both parties involved.
I was gifted this advance copy by Rachel Burton, Head of Zeus, Aria, and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.
Like the author, I often look at old homes and think about the voice of the past. If you are with me, you’ll often hear me say, “...if only those walls could talk…the secrets they’d share!” This was a special book about an estate home, Tristan Somers’ family home, and the secrets held within its walls. It’s also about a girl making a difficult decision with few options.
In this atmospheric novel, author Rachel Burton explores grief, trust, mental health and abandonment. The characters are well-crafted and the struggles they work through and how they work through them are authentic. In fact, it’s rare to have a bookish relationship such as Olivia and Jacob’s and I applaud the author in taking this rarely trodden path. Well balanced emotionally with seamless dovetailed timelines between a mother and her daughter, this is a compelling read about the twists in one’s path and how we deal with them in order to move forward. You’ll be left reminded that judging without knowing the whole story is detrimental to both parties involved.
I was gifted this advance copy by Rachel Burton, Head of Zeus, Aria, and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.
annemariebookaholic's review
4.0
I liked it from the from the start. Well written and kept my interest.
I didn't see the ending it was a complete surprise...
I'm not one to rehash a book and tell you what it's about....you can read the author's synopsis for that
I will tell you that the story is well written and the characters are relatable. I found myself right in the middle of the family mystery and hoping for a good outcome.
Go to your nearest library, bookstore or online to get a truly good story.
Highly recommend
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced digital copy for an honest review. All opinions are mine and mine alone
I didn't see the ending it was a complete surprise...
I'm not one to rehash a book and tell you what it's about....you can read the author's synopsis for that
I will tell you that the story is well written and the characters are relatable. I found myself right in the middle of the family mystery and hoping for a good outcome.
Go to your nearest library, bookstore or online to get a truly good story.
Highly recommend
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced digital copy for an honest review. All opinions are mine and mine alone
obsidian_blue's review
3.0
Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.
Geez, I don't even know what to say. Am really focusing on not spoiling things, though the book synopsis did that, but I edited below so potential readers are not. I think the cover promised a book packed with love and mystery and to me that meant more Gothic in nature. Unfortunately, that is not what I ended up with. The actual mystery was not very mysterious I thought. And I think that the author in the end let one of the characters we follow through this off the hook a bit too much. The flow between the two timelines did not work and the stories in both dragged forever. The way things tied up in the end just felt off to me too.
"The Secrets of Summer House" has us following two distinct timelines/women. In 1976, University Library, undergraduate Alice Kenzie has a straight up "meet-cute" with Tristan Somers. They fall in love, they get married, but something happens that ends up with Alice's daughter, Olivia, being left at Summer House. In 2018, Olivia Somers is dealing with the fact that her beloved grandmother has just died. Olivia is dealing with her husband being away in America. When she finds photos in her grandmother's study showing her parents' wedding, she realizes that her grandmother has hidden something from her, and then starts to investigate what happened to her mother/father decades earlier.
Alice and Tristan I really wanted to love. But there felt like so much stuff that was unsaid in those sections. We get hints and there via other characters in the Olivia sections what that was, but I really wish that it had been spelled out more. I always feel like people named Tristan are not long for this world. I don't think I have read about one in a book that had a happy ending. And now I am thinking about Legends of the Fall.
I digress.
Back to the book. At least Alice's sections the characters were more developed. I got to see Mary, Henry, Stella, and everyone else and you get their points of view a lot more in those sections.
Olivia's chapters felt flat. I don't know why she felt so estranged from her husband. It felt like she kept making mountains out of molehills. I thought we were going to get some things about an affair or something, but nope. She just didn't tell him something. And Olivia's husband seemed to just be there to bring her cups of tea. I was more interested in Olivia's best friend Tash than her unraveling her parents (not so mysterious) past.
The writing was solid (hence the 3) but the flow was awful. I felt myself getting restless while I was reading. I really wanted to ask is this it when I getting to the meat of the story (at around the 65 percent mark). And then when you get the revelations I felt let down and just aggravated.
The setting of Summer House should have been played up more. I mean the house is the title of the book. It sounded very decrepit in the Olivia sections and stifling and hot in the Alice sections. If you play up a house in a book I think either Gothic mystery novel or haunted house a la Shirley Jackson. This was neither.
The ending just wrapped things up too neatly. I needed more.
Geez, I don't even know what to say. Am really focusing on not spoiling things, though the book synopsis did that, but I edited below so potential readers are not. I think the cover promised a book packed with love and mystery and to me that meant more Gothic in nature. Unfortunately, that is not what I ended up with. The actual mystery was not very mysterious I thought. And I think that the author in the end let one of the characters we follow through this off the hook a bit too much. The flow between the two timelines did not work and the stories in both dragged forever. The way things tied up in the end just felt off to me too.
"The Secrets of Summer House" has us following two distinct timelines/women. In 1976, University Library, undergraduate Alice Kenzie has a straight up "meet-cute" with Tristan Somers. They fall in love, they get married, but something happens that ends up with Alice's daughter, Olivia, being left at Summer House. In 2018, Olivia Somers is dealing with the fact that her beloved grandmother has just died. Olivia is dealing with her husband being away in America. When she finds photos in her grandmother's study showing her parents' wedding, she realizes that her grandmother has hidden something from her, and then starts to investigate what happened to her mother/father decades earlier.
Alice and Tristan I really wanted to love. But there felt like so much stuff that was unsaid in those sections. We get hints and there via other characters in the Olivia sections what that was, but I really wish that it had been spelled out more. I always feel like people named Tristan are not long for this world. I don't think I have read about one in a book that had a happy ending. And now I am thinking about Legends of the Fall.
I digress.
Back to the book. At least Alice's sections the characters were more developed. I got to see Mary, Henry, Stella, and everyone else and you get their points of view a lot more in those sections.
Olivia's chapters felt flat. I don't know why she felt so estranged from her husband. It felt like she kept making mountains out of molehills. I thought we were going to get some things about an affair or something, but nope. She just didn't tell him something. And Olivia's husband seemed to just be there to bring her cups of tea. I was more interested in Olivia's best friend Tash than her unraveling her parents (not so mysterious) past.
The writing was solid (hence the 3) but the flow was awful. I felt myself getting restless while I was reading. I really wanted to ask is this it when I getting to the meat of the story (at around the 65 percent mark). And then when you get the revelations I felt let down and just aggravated.
The setting of Summer House should have been played up more. I mean the house is the title of the book. It sounded very decrepit in the Olivia sections and stifling and hot in the Alice sections. If you play up a house in a book I think either Gothic mystery novel or haunted house a la Shirley Jackson. This was neither.
The ending just wrapped things up too neatly. I needed more.
kariniwonderland's review
4.0
I adored this book. I finished it in almost one sitting. The stories of both Alice and Olivia are intriguing. Filled with mystery, sadness but also hope. How to deal with grief and therefore sometimes make hard decisions that others don't understand. Highly recommend this one! You won’t be disappointed!
I got this arc in exhange for an honest review.
I got this arc in exhange for an honest review.
bugsbunny_234's review
4.0
I wasn’t fully sure what to expect when I picked this up but I’ve always heard good things about Rachel’s books and I can now see why.
This is written in a dual time perspective, split between the current day and 1976. With this I feel like you get drawn into the story more as you are uncovering the truth at the same time as the character. I really liked reading all of Alice’s chapters as they transported you back to another era where things were so different, mostly though I just loved how much she shone through the pages, you could tell just how happy Tristan made her and how happy they were together.
Olivia was raised by her grandparents after both of her parents died in a tragic car accident - or that’s what she’s always been told. When some photos are revealed a few days after Olivia’s gran dies from a stroke it seems that not everything she’s been told is the truth.
This book will have you hooked from the get go and you will want to find out the truth just as much as Olivia. It can get a bit emotional at times but there were also lots of light happy moments that made me smile giving the book a really nice balance. I have to say that I didn’t see the surprise at the end of the book coming though - wow!
This is written in a dual time perspective, split between the current day and 1976. With this I feel like you get drawn into the story more as you are uncovering the truth at the same time as the character. I really liked reading all of Alice’s chapters as they transported you back to another era where things were so different, mostly though I just loved how much she shone through the pages, you could tell just how happy Tristan made her and how happy they were together.
Olivia was raised by her grandparents after both of her parents died in a tragic car accident - or that’s what she’s always been told. When some photos are revealed a few days after Olivia’s gran dies from a stroke it seems that not everything she’s been told is the truth.
This book will have you hooked from the get go and you will want to find out the truth just as much as Olivia. It can get a bit emotional at times but there were also lots of light happy moments that made me smile giving the book a really nice balance. I have to say that I didn’t see the surprise at the end of the book coming though - wow!
onecraftybird's review against another edition
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
hatto's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
kurumipanda's review against another edition
hopeful
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Death, Car accident, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Classism