Summer Island by Shelley NobleMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
“I'm closing the Sentinel.”
When Phoebe's fiance Gavin walks into the local newspaper The Sentinel's offices, the newspaper that Phoebe has been working hard to keep afloat ever since Gavin inherited it from his father, Phoebe's mentor, and declares today is the last day because he sold it, her world comes crashing down. Phoebe realizes that her dream of writing local and inspiring stories is becoming lost to her and that her fiancé has been lying to her for two years as he's been looking to sell the paper. Phoebe loses her job, fiancé, a place to live, and any sense of security in one fell swoop. When she calls her mother, Phoebe realizes she's not the only one.
“No, absolutely not. I'm fine. Unless you...”
“No, I'm fine.” it was a lie; neither one of them was fine.
Ruth has been married for over 30 years and made herself into the perfect wife, even going along with her husband's idea to sell their family home and move into a condo. Then one day he comes into the kitchen and announces he is leaving her because he has fallen in love with someone else. All those years of shrinking herself and giving all to her family begin to come crashing down on Ruth. When one of her three daughters calls her and tells her about losing her job and fiancé, Ruth has to come clean that Phoebe's dad left her a week ago. With Phoebe not having a place to live and Ruth not wanting to be around with her cheating husband comes to collect the rest of his things, they decide to escape and spend the weekend at Granna Alice's place, the matriarch of the family.
You couldn't push away grief, wrestle it out of your heart, trample it underfoot, ignore it until it went silently away. You could only live through it.
Ty was nominated by his two brothers to spend the summer with their grieving father after he's fallen into a deep depression over the death of his wife. Ty was always the black sheep of the family, only his mother understood him, and it's a constant battle with the father that never understood him and doesn't seem to want to live life anymore. When the women next door invite him and his father over for dinner, Ty goes even if his father still won't leave the house and he starts to feel an outlet in talking with the grown-up Phoebe that used to annoy him with all her questions when they were younger.
Summer Island is the perfect summer read that will suck you into the lives of these characters. It's mostly lead by Phoebe but all the characters have decisions they must face and choices to make. There wasn't much heartbreak over Phoebe's break-up with her fiancé, there didn't seem to be much love there and I think that's why the sliding through thread of building friendship to romance between Phoebe and Ty works. While there are tough emotional decisions being faced, the overall tone still stays away from sinking into deep angst, which I felt perfectly places this in the beach read category; there's satisfying emotion but you won't feel wrung out after reading.
How would she ever come out whole on the other side?
While Phoebe is deciding what direction her life should take, sticking with her dream of writing local stories or going for a more ambitious approach like editor at a big newspaper, she does some soul searching. This comes about through talking and listening to her mother, grandmother, great-aunt, Ty, and a local man who is fixing up old cars to turn into homes for homeless vets. Phoebe's the connector into all these characters that fill in and fill out the story. Her mother also has a strong showing with dealing with her husband leaving her and discovering that it was the wake-up call she needed in life. Ruth realizes that she let herself become erased over the years as she slowly started to live in service of her husband and children and the “suburban wife” mold. I think Ruth's story will touch a lot of woman, especially when she gets the strength to stand-up for herself and excited, nervously takes the first step to reclaiming herself.
Ty provided some of the heartache and sweetness with the grief he and his father had over the loss of his mother and then the slowly blooming friendship and romance between him and Phoebe. He was a harder character to know because of his stoic personality and propensity to show no emotion on his face but his steadiness and calm was a perfect match for what Phoebe needed. This was definitely contemporary, women's fiction but there was enough friendship and romance between the two (some kisses but firmly door shut) to mollify romance genre readers, too.
Phoebe's unsettled question of should she follow her own personal passion, her mother's fear of where it all went wrong, Ty's hurt of not being understood by his family, and the handful of other characters will pull you in and be a favorite beach read of the summer.
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