Book Review | Book Chatter

The Second Home
By Christina Clancy
St. Martin’s Press, 9781250239341, June 2020, 352pp.

The Short of It:

The Second Home is the type of story you linger in for awhile. Full of nostalgia and set in a classic Cape Cod setting.

The Rest of It:

The Gordon family has spent many summers at their beloved Wellfleet home on the Cape and have made many good memories there. But one summer, seventeen-year-old Ann experiences something that changes how she feels about the beloved beach house and when reality hits her, there’s no way to ever go back to how it was before.

The story goes back and forth in time. To the past, with the events leading up to Ann’s change of heart and then into the present which finds the Wellfleet home about to be put on the market. The decision to put the house on the market is not an easy one for Ann but what she feels is best for her sister Poppy and herself. However, their adopted brother Michael, who has been estranged from the family for years shows up to claim his piece of the house which forces Ann and Poppy to revisit their past.

At first, I had a hard time connecting with these characters. It took awhile for the author to lay the groundwork for the story but once she did, I was hooked. Clancy did an amazing job at setting the tone for this novel. It’s warm when it needs to be and brimming with nostalgia at times which I personally love. It’s also a story of loss and tragedy. There are many bittersweet moments as I turned the pages but the sense of family is overwhelming in a totally good way.

I did not want this story to end. As I got to those final pages I wanted to experience them without any distractions so I drew them out for as long as I could to ensure distraction-free reading. So good.

Have you read this one? Besides the awesome Cape setting, the house itself was so present and enjoyable even with all of its faults. The Second Home will be on my list of favorites at the end of the year.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

The Guest List
By Lucy Foley
William Morrow, 9780062868930, June 2020, 320pp.

The Short of It:

The cast of characters have arrived for a wedding on a remote island. What should be a celebratory event turns out to be a deadly affair.

The Rest of It:

Will and Jules are two, beautiful people. Happily successful in everything they do, they are the “it” couple and an invite to their wedding is not something the average person would ignore. Made up of old school chums, fellow colleagues and of course, the families of the bride and groom, the guest list is quite the to-do.

But Will and Jules are rather self-possessed and annoying. Jules has one bridesmaid, her younger sister who shows up to the wedding a bit of a mess. Will’s groomsmen are all extremely immature and juvenile but clearly there is some unfinished business between some of these characters and a big secret which could ruin the entire wedding.

I do enjoy a good story where the characters find themselves isolated with nowhere to hide. That sense of forced confinement really adds to the suspense and that is absolutely the case here. I didn’t see the big reveal coming until it was right in front of me. It was a good and proper ending for this story.

The setup is very similar to Foley’s earlier book, The Hunting Party. In that book, they arrive for a New Year’s Eve party, held at a fancy hunting lodge. The players in that book, share some similarity with those in The Guest List. That story takes place on secluded grounds, as does The Guest List. I feel that The Guest List possessed a bit more oomph in the area of suspense though and its reveal packed a more powerful punch. I was definitely more interested in these characters than the ones in The Hunting Party.

If this is a formula that Foley uses to write her books, then it’s a good one because both books are pretty entertaining and have done pretty well for themselves. Out of the two books, I’d recommend The Guest List for its setting.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

Chatting with friends about books and life…