These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean
on July 8, 2025
Genres: Fiction / Family Life / General, Fiction / Romance / Contemporary, Fiction / Women
Pages: 400
Format: Hardcover
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Alice isn’t like the other Storm siblings. While the rest stayed to battle for their parents’ approval, attention, and untold billions, she left, building her own life beyond the family’s name and influence. Nothing could induce her to come back, except the shocking death of her larger-than-life father. Now back on the family’s private island off the Rhode Island coast, she plans to keep her head down, pay the last of her respects, and leave the minute the funeral is over. Unfortunately, her father had other plans. The eccentric, manipulative patriarch left his widow and their grown children a final challenge–an inheritance game designed to humiliate, devastate, and unravel the Storm family in ways both petty and life-altering. The rules of the game are clear: stay on the island for one week, complete the tasks, receive the inheritance. One week on Storm Island is an impossible task for Alice. Every corner of the sprawling old house is bursting dysfunctional chaos: Her older sister’s secret love affair. Her brother’s incessant mansplaining. Her sister-in-law’s unapologetic greed. Her younger sister’s obsession with “vibes”. Her mother’s penchant for stirring up competition between her children. And all under the stern, watchful gaze of Jack Dean, her father’s enigmatic, unfairly good-looking, second-in-command. It will be a miracle if Alice manages to escape the week unscathed.
Wow! What a fantastic ride with this novel. I think that ultimately, a book that can transport you to a whole new world, allow you to feel the intense emotions strong connections can elicit, and make you feel seen and make you fall in love, fall in love with the characters, the story, the writing, are innately powerful. And this gorgeously written, emotionally evocative family drama has this innate power because the author is as good as she is. This story and these characters absolutely took my breath away, and if I could have added pages, simply to remain in their world just a little bit longer, I would have. It is absolutely perfect. I was hooked from the start and while I don’t think it’s meant to be a swoon-worthy, Jack Dean had me WEAK!
This novel gets 4.5 stars from me. This book was equal parts romance and family drama and was such a fun summer read. I loved the private island setting and the juxtaposition of how all the siblings behaved. This one is going on my favorites shelf. It is smart, emotionally layered, full of bite, and sneakily tender in all the right places. And the title? Could not be more perfect.
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