A review by life_full_ofbooks
The Summer Swap by Sarah Morgan

emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I went into this expecting a cute summer romance but it quickly became apparent that this is a multigenerational family drama with a small amount of romance sprinkled  about. It was certainly heavier than I expected and while it wasn’t bad, it also wasn’t engaging. 

Lily is at crossroads in her life. She has finally decided living her life for her parents isn’t working for her, so she dropped out of medical school and has fled to Cape Cod to escape. She’s working for a management company cleaning cottages and when she realizes no one has used Dune Cottage in nearly 50 years, she decides to stay there since housing accommodations on the Cape in summer are nil. Cecilia Lapthorne, widow of the famously artist Cameron Lapthorne, is feeling very uneasy. She doesn’t feel comfortable in her own home and she certainly isn’t comfortable with the 70th birthday party her daughter is throwing for her. She manages to leave without anyone noticing and escapes to her cottage on Cape Cod no one in her family knows about. Kristen Buckingham, Cecilia’s daughter, has a lot on her mind. She is worried about her daughter who is fighting with her best friend, she’s worried about her son who is engaged to a less than nice woman, she’s worried about her marriage since her husband never puts her first, she’s dealing with overwhelming grief from losing her father a year ago, and now she’s worried about her mother’s mental health since she ran away from her own party. Over the course of the book the three women’s lives will collide with each learning something from the others and figuring out what living for yourself really means. 

This is told through the alternating viewpoints of each of the three protagonists and follows their lives over a summer. I’m not really sure where the title comes from as there is absolutely no swapping at all. Because of the title I thought it would be more on the comedic side of romances, but it most certainly was not. 

I appreciate the level of character depth Sarah Morgan gives us and I love the idea of women finding themselves and learning to be authentic, but this didn’t quite hit the mark. It felt very mundane and some scenes seemed forced. This is yet another book where I was shocked to discover it wasn’t a debut and the author actually has a plethora of books to her name. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing & Canary Street Press for an advanced copy of this. The Summer Swap hit the shelves on May 7th.