Maren’s Reads's Reviews > Same Time Next Summer

Summary: When Sam and her fiancé Jack head back to her family’s Long Island beach house in search of a nearby wedding venue, she is thrown for a loop when it turns out her first love Wyatt has returned as well. As she and Wyatt begin to reconnect, Sam is confronted with the memories of all that she shared with him and finds herself torn between her past and her present.

Thoughts: Earlier this year, I read and loved Nora Goes off Script, so when I saw Annabel Monaghan had a new book out, I jumped at the chance to read it (a whole six moths prior to publication). Featuring a few of my favorite tropes such as second chance love and friends to lovers, this book strikes the perfect balance between romance and women’s fiction.

The romance at the center of this story is perfection. Told in dual timeline with dual points of view, it was incredibly moving to read about the journey these two MC’s took from friends to lovers, to a years long estrangement and then ultimately back into each other’s lives. While I struggled to connect to Sam’s character at first, in large part because of her counterpart Jack, once she allowed me in, I felt as though I really knew and understood her. Because of that connection, my emotional investment in her outcome both personally and professionally was incredibly high.

I also loved the beach setting, especially having spent summers on Long Island myself, and could just envision Sam’s family home, with all of the quirky intricacies it held. It brought back such fond memories of looking for sea shells and beach glass all summer and spending entire days on the beach from sunrise to sunset. I also loved the use of the dual settings to show the juxtaposition between the two worlds Sam found herself torn between.

Read if you like:
•second chance love
•friends to lovers
•beach setting
•dual timeline/dual pov
•Every Summer After

Thank you to Putnam and NetGalley for my ARC in exchange for my honest review. Monaghan has become an auto-buy author for me and I cannot wait to see what she comes out with next.