Publication Date: June 11, 2024
After the Jacobson siblings win a life-changing fortune in the lottery, they assume their messy lives will transform into sleek, storybook perfection–but they couldn’t be more wrong.
The four Jacobson children were raised to respect the value of a dollar. Their mother reused tea bags and refused to pay retail; their father taught them to budget before he taught them to ride a bike. And yet, now that they’re adults, their financial lives are in disarray.
The siblings reunite when their newly widowed father puts their Jersey Shore beach house on the market. Packing up childhood memories isn’t easy, especially when there’s other drama brewing. Matthew is miserable at his corporate law job and wishes he had more time with his son; Laura’s marriage is imploding in spectacular fashion; Sophie’s art career is stalled while her boyfriend’s is on the rise; and Noah’s total failure to launch has him doing tech repair for pennies.
When Noah sees an ad for a Powerball drawing, he and his sisters go in on tickets while their brother Matthew passes. All hell breaks loose when one of the tickets is a winner and three of the four Jacobsons become overnight millionaires. Without their mother’s guidance, and with their father busy playing pickleball in a Florida retirement village, the once close-knit siblings search for comfort in shiny new toys instead of each other.
It’s not long before the Jacobsons start to realize that they’ll never feel rich unless they can pull their family back together.
If there is one element that will throw a wrench in a relationship, it’s money. For the Jacobson siblings, a lottery win creates all sorts of chaos.
Author Elyssa Friedland delivers an engaging beach read in Jackpot Summer. This close-knit group, dubbed the Fantastic Foursome by their late mother, is horrified by the news their father plans to sell the family beach house.
Their last weekend leads to three of them purchasing a winning lottery ticket. Rather than finding the happiness they expected, their newfound wealth creates unforeseen complications.
The characters are incredibly relatable, especially as they debate whether to share their winnings with the sibling who initially passed on participating and learn valuable lessons about happiness.
Jackpot Summer oozes with emotion, highlighting the importance of relationships, especially when money is involved.
Elyssa Friedland is the acclaimed author of Last Summer at the Golden Hotel, The Floating Feldmans, The Intermission, and Love and Miss Communicatio. Elyssa is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia Law School and currently teaches novel writing at Yale. She lives with her husband and three children in New York City, the best place on earth.
