Publication Date: May 16, 2023
When a woman who’d rather do anything than read meets a swoon-worthy bookworm, sparks fly, making for one hot-summer fling in New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay’s new rom-com.
For Samantha Gale, a summer on Martha’s Vineyard at her family’s tiny cottage was supposed to be about resurrecting her career as a chef, until she’s tasked with chaperoning her half-brother, Tyler. The teenage brainiac is spending his summer at the local library in a robotics competition, and there’s no place Sam, who has dyslexia, likes less than the library. And because the universe hates her, the library’s interim director turns out to be the hot-reader guy whose book she accidentally destroyed on the ferry ride to the island.
Bennett Reynolds is on a quest to find his father, whose identity he’s never known. He’s taken the temporary job on the island to research the summer his mother spent there when she got pregnant with him. Ben tells himself he isn’t interested in a relationship right now. Yet as soon as Sam knocks his book into the ocean, he can’t stop thinking about her.
An irresistible attraction blossoms when Ben inspires Sam to create the cookbook she’s always dreamed about and she jumps all in on helping him find his father, and soon they realize their summer fling may heat up into a happily ever after.
There are so many terrific things about Jenn McKinlay’s Summer Reading: a spunky neurodivergent heroine, a hunky librarian hero, and some interesting and complicated family relationships.
Chef Samantha Gale leaves behind a career disappointment to spend the summer watching out for her teenage half-brother while her dad and stepmom tour Europe. In an awkward incident on the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, Sam meets a handsome guy who turns out to be the interim director of the library.
In an event-filled summer, Sam builds a kinship with her brother, rekindles an old friendship, finds a new direction for her career, and discovers love.
It is a pleasure to see new romances with neurodivergent characters. In this case, Samantha has dyslexia and is somewhat ADD. By writing in the first person, the author invites us to see the struggles Sam has faced and the many ways she has learned to cope. Sam is in her early thirties but realizes she still has much to learn about herself. She is funny, slightly insecure, and hesitantly optimistic.
Librarian Bennett Reynolds has had a difficult past but has made great strides in dealing with it.
Summer Reading is full of appeal. The characters are multi-dimensional and realistic. Perhaps Bennett is a little too perfect, but this is a romance, after all. Summer Reading is a light-hearted romance with hidden depths.
Jenn is the bestselling author of several mystery series, romance series, and stand alone women’s fiction titles. She lives in sunny Arizona in a house that is overrun with kids, pets and her husband’s guitars.
