Publication Date: July 16, 2024
A bestselling author finds love and second chances in the stacks of a quaint beach town bookshop
Author Shelby Archer found inspiration for her first novel while living on the picturesque shores of Provincetown on Cape Cod. When she comes to the town to celebrate her new bestseller, she is expecting a warm homecoming. But instead she is confronted with the cold shoulders of friends and neighbors who feel exposed and betrayed.
Heartbroken, Shelby tries to move on and focus on her next novel. But then an unexpected call comes: her dear friend who owns the beloved Land’s End bookshop needs help for the summer. Shelby reluctantly returns to the Cape to manage the store.
Back at the beach, Shelby sets her focus on the tiny seaside shop, getting lost in the shelves of steamy romance novels and dusty classics and trying to right the wrongs of her past. With every page turned and every customer served, Shelby comes closer to gaining back the trust of those she hurt. But as her manuscript deadline nears, she is again forced to choose between her own success and a second chance at love and belonging.
A Novel Summer by Jamie Brenner is the perfect beach read by a new-to-me author who has been influenced by authors I read and look for their books—Elin Hilderbrand, Emily Giffin, Nancy Thayer, Dorothea Benton Frank, and my absolute favorite, Susan Mallery. I’ll add more of Ms. Brenner’s books to my TBR pile and look forward to reading them all.
“Novel” means something new and original as well as a fictionalized book, and both definitions play out in the storytelling. Three college friends—Shelby, Hunter, and Colleen—go their separate ways after graduating, even though they plan to reunite each summer in Provincetown on the Cape.
The four summers Shelby spent there with her best friends impacted her life, but she hadn’t returned, and now she’s a bestselling author in New York City.
Hunter is from Boston and comes from money. Her family owns a vacation home in P’town. She is at loose ends after losing her job but doesn’t see herself ever leaving the Boston area permanently.
Colleen is running her family’s bookstore, Land’s End on the Cape, and never planned to do anything else. The bookstore plays prominently in the story. But life has a way of making you rethink those plans when you’re led in a different direction.
When all of their lives are at a crossroads, they end up on the Cape once again. Anger and bitterness are marring their friendships, and they need to be able to apologize and move on. But that’s harder than it should be. Multiple stories are told with many twists and turns. The story is sometimes choppy when one of the characters tells the story from their point of view, and then we switch to another’s. There’s no break in the page nor a new chapter to make us aware, and it often took me a moment to catch up.
With the wonderful and colorful backdrop of P’town, there are family and friends, love interests, some romance, novels written, plans derailed, arguments, conflicts, secrets, business decisions, and more. I could smell the ocean and the food and visualize the setting. All three of their lives are different than expected or planned, and they deal with what’s happening rationally and irrationally. But when they start to mend fences, they each have a chance at a happily ever after that they hadn’t envisioned for themselves. There is closure, but it was rushed, and an epilogue would have given a more satisfying conclusion.
A Novel Summer is a beach read set on the Cape. The vivid descriptions made me feel I was there, sipping a cold drink and hearing the waves in the distance.
Jamie Brenner is the bestselling author of seven novels including The Forever Summer and Blush. She spends her winters writing in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and her summers visiting the beach towns that inspire her books.
