The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner
Summary
When her twenty-two-year-old stepdaughter announces her engagement to her pandemic boyfriend, Sarah Danhauser is shocked. But the wheels are in motion. Headstrong Ruby has already set a date (just three months away!) and spoken to her beloved safta, Sarah’s mother Veronica, about having the wedding at the family’s beach house in Cape Cod. Sarah might be worried, but Veronica is thrilled to be bringing the family together one last time before putting the big house on the market.
But the road to a wedding day usually comes with a few bumps. Ruby has always known exactly what she wants, but as the wedding date approaches, she finds herself grappling with the wounds left by the mother who walked out when she was a baby. Veronica ends up facing unexpected news, thanks to her meddling sister, and must revisit the choices she made long ago, when she was a bestselling novelist with a different life. Sarah’s twin brother, Sam, is recovering from a terrible loss, and confronting big questions about who he is—questions he hopes to resolve during his stay on the Cape. Sarah’s husband, Eli, who’s been inexplicably distant during the pandemic, confronts the consequences of a long ago lapse from his typical good-guy behavior. And Sarah, frustrated by her husband, concerned about her stepdaughter, and worn out by challenges of life during quarantine, faces the alluring reappearance of someone from her past and a life that could have been.
When the wedding day arrives, lovers are revealed as their true selves, misunderstandings take on a life of their own, and secrets come to light. There are confrontations and revelations that will touch each member of the extended family, ensuring that nothing will ever be the same.
Book Settings: Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet
Provincetown Public Library: Where Sarah, Ronnie and Sam would sit and watch the Portuguese Festival and Carnival Parade.
Truro Library: Where Ronnie would go for book club
Gull Pond: Where Sarah and Sam learned to swim
Wildflowers of Provincetown: Ronnie plans to stop by Wildflowers to discuss what flowers should be at the house for the wedding
Slough Pond: Sarah had dared Owen to swim butterfly across the length of the pond when they were eighteen
Moby Dick’s Restaurant: Where Sarah and Sam liked to go out to eat as kids
Ciro & Sal’s: Where Ronnie and Leo would chose to go out to eat
PJ’s: Where Sarah and Sam would chose to go out to eat as kids
Provincetown Yacht Club: Where Owen worked as a counselor in the summer
The Piping Plover: Where Ronnie went and got a sample of weed
Corn Hill Beach: Where Sarah taught Sam how to drive
Spiritus Pizza: Tim told Sam that young people call it the garage sale. The men who hadn’t paired up at the bars would go there
Boatslip Resort & Beach Club: Where Sam was told men would go to hook up
Provincetown Portuguese Bakery: Where Sam picked up malasadas after his night out in Provincetown
Reviews
“A family’s secrets and entanglements flare up during a Cape Cod wedding in this first-rate page-turner from Weiner. [She] is a master of emotionally complicated narratives, and her smart and witty writing is on full display here. This engrossing novel will please her legions of fans.”
— Publishers Weekly
“The Summer Place is so good, it will be on every beach this summer. [It] gets at the core of just how life's twists and turns, choices and moments can consume us – and how beautiful that entanglement can be, despite the hardships…with its Cape Cod setting that evokes seashells, cool water, melting ice cream and summer bliss, it's sure to be the must-have beach bag item this year.”
— USA Today
"The natural beauty of the Outer Cape is the backdrop for plenty of family drama and romantic intrigue in Weiner’s latest novel, which incorporates the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic but still manages to feel breezy and delicious to read."
— Emma Specter, Vogue