Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Summertime Guests

A probing, suspenseful drama where strangers at a posh hotel reflect on their lives after a jarring sudden death.

 

Wendy Francis (Best Behavior) delivers a smart, probing drama that skillfully unravels the complex emotional lives of an ensemble cast in Summertime Guests, a novel set one weekend in June at a posh hotel on the North Shore of Boston.


Legendary elegance is the hallmark of The Seafarer, a famous, historic hotel. After a major renovation, the landmark destination reopens under the management of workaholic, 39-year-old Parisian, Jean-Paul, who has a wife and new baby he is woefully neglecting. There are 250 rooms at The Seafarer. However, Francis narrows her focus on only a handful of guests: Riley and Tom, a young, Midwestern couple planning a wedding at the establishment are challenged by the overbearing expectations of the mother-of-the-groom. Widowed Rhode Island journalist Claire O’Dell, age 61, checks into the hotel to take a breather. Claire wrote a provocative article about a local politician with mob ties, and her newspaper suggests she take some time off. Claire uses the opportunity to reconnect with an old flame who lives near Boston. And then there is a 30something couple: Gwen, a teaching assistant, who treats her beau, Jason, an adjunct professor, to a weekend birthday get-away in the hope of healing their fraught relationship. Emotional, personal complications abound and deepen as the lives of these strangers are affected when a woman plunges to her death from a hotel balcony. 

 

The subsequent investigation into the mysterious sudden death makes for a reflective, deeply engaging and suspenseful story with many threads sure to ensnare the attention of rapt readers.


Summertime Guests: A Novel by Wendy Francis

Graydon House, $16.99 paperback, 9781525895982, 320 pages

Publication Date: March 9, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (April 9, 2021), link HERE