Summer Rental

Summer Rental
Mary Kay Andrews
St. Martin’s Press, 2011

Longtime girlfriends Ellis, Dorie and Julia have arranged a month long, much needed vacation together on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Even though they had specifically said it was to be a girls only vacation, Ellis and Julia grudgingly allowed Dorie to bring her husband because he needed a vacation too. When Dorie shows up alone, acting strangely, the other two women start speculating that something must be wrong, but they have no idea what kind of shocking revelation they are in store for.

Ellis, meanwhile, has her own secret: she has a big crush on the hunky dude next door. She knows that Dorie and Julia would be very supportive of her having a relationship, but she’s just not sure it will be more than a summer fling and she doesn’t need all the advice and comments she just knows she would have to endure. Ellis has just lost her job and doesn’t know what she’s going to do career-wise or boyfriend-wise.

Julia, on the other hand, knows what everyone should do about every problem in her life. She likes to think she has everything under control, but in reality, life is just as confusing and problematic for her as it is for anyone else. She just doesn’t like to admit it.

And Madison? Where did she come from? What’s her story? When Dorie meets Madison in town, she impulsively invites her to stay with the three of them. Not only does Madison seem to have a lot of money that can help pay the rent, she seems to have her own secrets. But will her secrets lead to a happy ending? The other women are determined to help her, even if she fights them every inch of the way.

This delightful story of friendship, relationships, and life-changing decisions is a wonderful mixture of light and dark, happy and sad, and even beginnings and endings. It is not deep, but it has a strong plot that was only a little predictable and enough likeable characters to make it a light but meaningful reading experience.

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Other novels by this author:
Savannah Blues (2001)
Hissy Fit (2004)
Savannah Breeze (2006)
Blue Christmas (2006)
Deep Dish (2008)
The Fixer Upper (2009)



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