I loved this book. The situations felt realistic, and the characters' actions believable. The author writes about the lives of three women: Laurel and Paris, who have been friends since the first grade, and Cassie, a newcomer to town. All three women have baggage that keeps them from moving on with their lives. I loved seeing each woman face their pasts and fears and find hope for the future with each other's help and support.

Laurel is a divorced mother of two tween girls, Jagger and Ariana. Her husband left them to "follow his dream" and took all of their savings. It took her a while to get back on her feet using her resale business, but things are looking better now. Unfortunately, her bitterness and anger toward her ex has affected Jagger, who frequently comments about how terrible men are. Laurel is advised to find a good male role model or two - a task easier said than done, especially as she has no interest in another relationship. How she finds that male role model to be friends with is amusing. I loved watching Colton become part of their lives. He's excellent with the girls and the perfect example to show Laurel that not all men are jerks. It's easy to see them grow closer, and Colton's feelings are apparent. But Laurel fights her feelings for him until it's almost too late. Run-ins with her ex complicate their lives.

Paris is also divorced with no children. She runs a successful farm stand, and I loved seeing her marketing creativity. Her divorce happened ten years earlier when her husband could no longer handle her volatile temper. Years of therapy have taught Paris how to handle her emotions, but she still doesn't trust herself, so she has avoided any romantic entanglements. Her life and sense of calm are upended when her ex, Jonah, returns to town with his eight-year-old son, Danny. Jonah holds no grudges against Paris and makes it clear that he would like to be friends. I got a little frustrated with Paris as she frequently mentioned her past treatment of him as a reason he should stay away from her, even though she realizes she still loves him. I loved Jonah's patience and persistence as he helped Paris overcome her guilt and fears.

Cassie is the newcomer to town. The youngest in her family, she was the most affected when their parents died when she was fourteen. She coped by becoming the person who stepped up whenever her older brother or sister needed help, putting her dreams and activities aside. She also tends to form relationships with men/boys who need fixing and then gets dumped when they no longer need her. As the story opens, Cassie's brother and sister sit her down and tell her it's time for her to live her own life. They use a "tough love" method of kicking her out and sending her to California to check on the property she inherited from their uncle. Cassie is hurt, angry, and a little scared, and determined to survive her six-month exile and return to Maine as soon as possible. She doesn't count on making two good friends in Laurel and Paige, discovering a connection with the land she inherited, or finding a man who sees past her insecurities.

I loved the intertwining of Laurel's, Paris's, and Cassie's lives. Paris was there for Laurel when her husband walked out, and Laurel gave Paris the support she needed to confront her anger issues. I loved how they welcomed Cassie into their circle. Each was always ready to back up the others in an emergency - emotional or physical. They were also prepared to call each other out when they avoided the truth of their feelings about the men in their lives or the issues they tried to ignore. With her years of therapy, Paris is especially good at getting to the heart of a problem.

I also liked the realistic depiction of the children's reactions to various things. I ached for Jagger and Ariana as they dealt with their father's desertion. Each girl handled it differently, and I liked seeing the results as the summer progressed. I especially enjoyed seeing the changes in Jagger as she got to know Colton and his parents, Jonah, and Raphael. Jonah's son Danny was a sweet kid who was dealing with his mother's death. I liked his quick connection with Paris. I laughed when his love of Paris's dog, Bandit, resulted in his pestering Jonah for a dog of his own.

I wish there had been an epilogue, as I would love to see how everyone's lives are going a few years later.

#netgalley ( )

Laurel, Paris, and Cassie meshed so well together. They each brought something different to their friendship. Yet, their experiences helped them all navigate life and love.

I chuckled at Laurel and Colton's "first time" together. Laurel was acting like an awkward teen girl afterwards. It was funny but sweet. I am glad she has someone like Colton as he really loves her. Despite Laurel being in denial due to her divorce, her self-esteem did take a dive. She had to slowly build it back up. That is where Colton comes in.

Paris and Jonah have history together. I applaud Paris for recognizing her faults that lead to her and Jonah falling apart. You could feel that there were still strong feelings there between them. Jonah was so kind and patient with Paris.

Cassie and Raphael make a lovely couple. I fell for Raphael as well right away. So glad that Cassie was able to find herself and love in the process.

I love that the women were reading romance books written in the 1980's. When I really started getting into romance books, I binge read so many books from this era written by the greats...Julia Garwood, Jude Deveraux, Mary Jo Putney, Judith McNaught, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, Linda Howard, and Karen Robards to name a few. ( )

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

The Summer Book Club follows three women navigating life after losing love and working to keep avoiding it but getting their second chances anyway. Friends since childhood, Laurel and Paris, are in their late thirties, divorced, and trying to keep their businesses running and successful, while late twenties newcomer from the East Coast, Cassie, is fighting being thrown out of the nest for the first time. This leaned a little more towards women's fiction but the romance interests make their appearances around the 25% mark (a little later for Cassie) and flutter in and out enough to give a secondary tag of romance. This was all closed door scenes, they passionately kiss but then are “waking” up in bed after having their world rocked ten/twenty minutes later. I also thought there was an underlying tone of conservative intimacy, the “save it for someone special” idealism that felt a little icky to me but your mileage may vary. The book club aspect wasn't really included, worked to get Cassie in the group and the men later join but it really only added some fun little shout-outs to books of yore, MacKenzie's Mountain by Linda Howard; Knight of Shining Armour by Jude Deveraux; The Endearment by LaVyrle Spencer; and Night into Day by Sandra Canfield.

No more guys, she vowed. No more love. No more being stupid.

Laurel has been divorced for a year after her husband drained their bank accounts and left to start a rafting company in Jamaica. She's been stressed to say the least as she tries to keep her thrifting business, searching for low priced items at Goodwill, estate sales, etc. to up-sale on Ebay, and raise her two pre-teen daughters. She's called into the school where a teacher tells her that her oldest daughter has been saying man hating comments and Laurel realizes that her bitterness has bled over into her daughter and it's time to find some positive male role models for her girls. With some serendipitous help, she keeps running into a sound engineer named Colton and dumps her story on him and he agrees to be “just” friends with her. They, oops, have some of that not shown bedroom mind-blowing but it's back to “just” friends, until Colton's parents are visiting and then a fake-dating situationship happens.

This was probably the most emotional story, but it wasn't to do with the romance, one of Laurel's daughters is hurt and angry about their father abandoning them and them being extremely flaky while the younger daughter loves him and begs and cries for any crumbs from him. It was hurtful to see how this kind of dynamic can hurt family members individually and the family unit.

She wasn’t who she had been.

Paris' story will probably be the one most people have the hardest connecting with, she's been divorced for a little under ten years after her husband walked out without saying a word to her. Paris grew-up with an abusive mom and carried those learned traits into her marriage, letting her anger control her and was not only emotionally abusive, yelling constantly at her husband, but also physical, throwing things at him and slapping him. It was great that Paris didn't excuse her behavior before she got therapy but the keeping of bringing up scenes where she was physically abusive to her husband did kill a lot of the romance genre feelings trying to come through. Her ex comes back to town to help his mother recover from knee surgery and she learns that his wife and mother to his son died of cancer a year ago.

I probably could have made an effort to connect with this story more if the ex-husband had shown any strength in being hurt or mad over how Paris treated him during their marriage, but he pretty much shrugs it all off and thinks more about how it was wrong of him to just walk away and not speak to her. He also shows no concern over leaving his son with her to babysit, saying he “trusts” her. Good, great but she was physically abusive with you and even though she says she went to therapy and seems calm in the two/three limited times you've been around her, should you immediately trust her around a child? This is where the focus on women's fiction hurt this story, the ex was pretty much an empty vessel to just be Paris' second chance and without his character depth, the redemption after she dealt with her anger issues did not feel satisfactory.

Why did she pick loser guys she helped get back on their feet who then left her?

Cassie's story was the most interesting to me but there was some thrown out there little wildness to it. Her parents died when she was fourteen and even though she had two older siblings, her uncle came and took care of her until she was eighteen. She never got to really deal with her grief and as a consequence, she is always focused on keeping everyone around her happy and keeps her relationships light because she thinks they're going to end anyway. Her siblings see that she is stalling her life to help them out and decide to kick her out and get her to go visit the land in California her uncle left her. Cassie's hurt and doesn't want to go but when she arrives, she gets a job at a bookstore and starts to fall in love with the land and small orchard her uncle left her.

This story has a, brought up over and over again, insanely handsome archaeologist that is excavating on Cassie's land because a matriarchal society lived there long ago, cave drawings newly discovered by Cassie (brought up once and never again), gold mine find of hidden cognac barrels, and a random old guy neighbor that knows all about orchards and wants nothing in life more than to help Cassie learn how to bring back to life and take care of her newly inherited one. The insanely handsome archaeologist also has some love of first sight but when he asks out Cassie, she laughs and leaves, thinking there's no way he'd actually be interested in her. Anyway, Cassie learns to live life for herself, not be afraid of some impending doom, and accept love from an insanely handsome archaeologist.

I liked how the women's lives all intertwined with each other but the romances were definitely weaker as the men were all pretty empty vessels who only seemed capable of spouting therapy perfect emotions and relationship conversations. ( )

3.5 Stars

Three women, each resilient, move on and make a life out of the hands they’ve been dealt. They bond and help each other thru their respective issues, each being the voice of reason for the others.

A lighter read centering on women helping, supporting and encouraging each other. Characters are very likable, most situations are relatable and realistic. The bookclub takes a very minor role in the story. I enjoyed seeing each women grow, both individually and as a sisterhood. Found the male characters more simplistic, lacking depth. Overall, it was a lighter read I enjoyed, especially not having read this author in a while. A fun beach read during the cold winter months.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone. ( )