Summer by the Tides by Denise Hunter

Following a painful betrayal, Maddy Monroe’s love life is a wreck, and her restaurant career is in shambles. When her grandmother goes missing, she and her estranged sisters converge at the family beach house in Sea Haven, North Carolina. Being with uptight Nora and free-spirited Emma at the place where their family broke apart is a struggle, and undercurrents of jealousy and resentment threaten to pull the sisters under. In the midst of the storm, sparks begin to fly between Maddy and Gram’s maddening neighbor, Connor Murphy.

As the sisters pack up the family belongings, memories of idyllic, slow-paced summers are resurrected. But long-buried secrets also come to light as Maddy discovers that all was not as it appeared that last summer in Sea Haven–nor today in the seemingly perfect lives of her sisters.

As family tensions rise and Connor causes tumult in Maddy’s heart, the sisters must find a way to accept each other for the women they’ve become before the bitterness of the past destroys their hope for a future.

I’ll start off by saying this: honestly, I wasn’t a huge fan of this book! I had high expectations from having read another one of Hunter’s books and really enjoyed it, so I thought I would love this one equally as much. That wasn’t the case though! I think certain people would like this book, but I didn’t because 1) I had just finished Suzanne Fisher’s On a Summer Tide and found that book and Summer by the Tides to be wayyyy too similar — in plot, characters, and overall feel. And because I had just finished that book I didn’t particularly want to read another book that had such similarities to it. 2) I was in a pretty major reading slump! 3) I really didn’t love the characters much. Maddy and Connor, the “main” main characters, were both really average characters and didn’t really connect to me?

Overall, all I really want to say about this book is meh? There isn’t really anything particularly noteworthy to say about it. 2.5 stars.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. All thoughts are my own and a positive review was not required.