This book follows Ruthie's summer, as her broken marriage completely falls apart and her job as head of a small museum in the unfashionable part of the Hamptons is ripped away from her by unartistic and non-community minded socialite board members. Other parts of the novel are narrated by her teen daughter Jem and Doe, who works at the museum. The parts about Ruthie's job and the board drama were pretty interesting, but Mike, her husband, didn't work for me as a character and I found his arc bizarre. He starts sleeping with Adeline, a renowned beauty who is renting their house for the summer and who also happens to be the ex-wife of Ruthie's horrible old boss. The boss's son, Lucas, is living with Adeline, and almost nothing about their storyline worked for me. Similarly, almost everything about Doe fell flat for me.

It's weird because this is a novel about the not-rich who live on a playground for the rich, but it had a #richpeopleproblems vibe for me that made it hard to care about anyone. It's hard to find a book compelling when all of the characters are bores.

Ruthie Beamish lives in the “uncool” northern fork of the Hamptons in a town called Orient, and in order to afford her house, she lets it out each year for the summer. Ruthie and her husband had moved there from New York after 9/11 when her husband inherited a fixer upper. They spent the next several years investing themselves physically and emotionally in this house while raising their daughter, Jem. Both Ruthie and Mike were artists and Ruthie worked for a very famous one in New York whose widow, Adeline Clay, and her reprobate step-son contract to rent her house for the whole season. Also adding to the drama, a billionaire who is Adeline’s lover and has a place in the fashionable South Hamptons, arrives with his daughter to grace the locals with their presence. Ruthie has a house she loves and a job running a museum that means everything to her. Her marriage unraveled about three years ago because her husband decided he was not happy although they ostensibly remain friends. Their daughter, Jem, at fifteen has her own issues going on with school friends and being swept up in the rich folk’s lifestyle once Adeline arrives and takes over not only Ruthie’s house, but seemingly her family too.

As F. Scott Fitzgerald said about, “…the very rich. They are different from you and me.” No kidding, these summer people live in a rarefied atmosphere where they care little for the effect they have on other people’s lives no matter how damaging. With the entitled and spoiled children who seem adrift, these wealthy elites descend on the quaint village expecting everyone to give obeisance. As the summer unfolds, Ruthie’s life unravels when she finds the people once thought to be reliable and genuine are much shallower and more self-absorbed than she had realized. Everything that Ruthie thinks is important in life seems to be wrenched away from her. How she responds and the consequences of her and other’s actions play out of the summer.

This book is full of some interesting characters who make choices in their lives that result in some significant regrets for some and changes for others. This is one of those books that is difficult to review because the writing is excellent; however, for the most part, the characters range from odious to selfish and some are certainly morally questionable people. At least the main character Ruthie does come to realize what is important in her life and what is not, but not before much craziness ensues. Readers might enjoy this book as character study on the rich and famous especially artists, who have a whole other level elitism, as well as what being a satellite person in their world looks like.

I got through about 20% of this when I realized I just didn't care and it's not for me. I initially thought this would be more of a beach setting but it's really not which was disappointing and based on the cover kind of misleading. I don't have an interest in the politics of art museums so right there the story lost me. I also had a hard time understanding how people were connected which makes it hard for me to care what they do.

I was not familiar with author Judy Blundell previous to reading The High Season, but I will certainly be on the look out for her work in the future!

Ruthie Beamish has the perfect house and the perfect life in the perfect beach town. Well, except to afford the perfect house she and her family have to move out and rent during the high season and as for the perfect family, she and her husband Mike are divorced but have remained close friends and co-parents of teenage daughter Jem, and the perfect beach town is starting to become overrun with affluent social climbers but other than that....

During the high season this year the infamous and very wealthy Adeline Clay, with rogue stepson in tow, is renting Ruthie's house and she might have her eyes set on more than just the house. Ruthie's teenage daughter Jem has a crush on someone, but Ruthie doesn't have time to figure out who as she is mysteriously being pushed out of her job at the art museum, attending parties thrown by billionaires, fighting with her best friend - and oh yeah, her former flame from twenty years prior is back in town.

I loved Ruthie's observations on life and her snark and how all of the subplots of this novel fit together very in the end. If Curtis Sittenfeld and Elin Hilderbrand had a book baby, the result would be The High Season. Look forward to more by Blundell!

This novel is classified as a summer read, but I just read it over a snowy Saturday in April, and it was just as beachy-feeling. Our protagonist, Ruthie (never Ruth), vacates her Hampton's home every summer to rent out to the rich folk. This summer isn't exactly cataclysmic, but more of a series of cracks in her veneer, all adding up to a complete life change by season's end. The novel was well-paced, the story not original but engrossing all the same. I recommend this novel for any kind of weather, even under a blanket on a snowy day.

Not everyone means it when they say "it's not you, it's me," but in the case of The High Season it's true. I walked into it expecting a beach read, but I got financial, work, and relationship stress from almost every character. There's a place for that kind of book in my life, but not this week.

Perfect summer read. A page turner with many characters that share that summer clique and the outsiders that visit their area for the summer. The rich and the famous don’t blend very well in this awesome book.

More than just a great summer read. Moved to tears by the plight of Ruthie, as she sees her life change all in one summer. A glimpse into the life of the ultra rich Hamptons set, but from the North Fork. New Yorkers will relate, but so will mothers, artists, and anyone who recalls how the promised magic of summer can turn hazy right before your eyes.

I wish I could have finished this faster but work got so busy this week. The book is being compared to The Nest but I luckily don't see much of the comparison other than the theme. This book had a few more likable characters , thankfully for me who did not enjoy The Nest as much as others.
It took a while for things to start coming together for me though. Although every character's subplots were interesting, I was getting sick of reading about them without understanding how and if they connected. This is another reason I didn't finish as quickly. I felt like I was putting the book down much faster than other stories I have read.
Overall, I liked the read. I was interested in the plot and subplots. Many of the characters were likable in their own way, and the ones that were not had very specific reasons to the book (no spoilers here).
There's a quick reference of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" which I adored. There also many other literary references (Alice in Wonderland, Macbeth) . These little connections to the story kept me intrigued and reading because the lack of a major plot had me stalled until it became more obvious halfway through the book. I was only reading about 20 pages at a time.
I think this will be a big hit for others. I was wanting more of a beach setting. The cover and description is kind of deceiving. It's much more of a book about art that is set at the beach (but nothing else to distinguish the beach). It could have taken place anywhere else and worked. To me it was just okay. I think I am beginning to realize I don't enjoy gossipy women's fiction so much. Then again, I loved Big Little Lies. The review was so hard for me to write. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it, but I don't have much to say. I'll have to ponder on this one a bit more.

I have an addiction to reading books that are set on islands and can be called beach reads. Instead of Nantucket, The High Season Is set off Long Island. Part of the story is about the beautiful people who throw their money around and make drastic alterations. It's also about inevitable change, entitled snobs who are spineless cowards and easily led, and the beauty of small coastal towns that hold onto their quaintness. The High Season has lots of lows, but evens out in the end.

Ruthie is hoping for a good summer, she will be making good money for a full summer rental of her house, she has scored a good house sitting arrangement for the summer, she enjoys her job at the local museum, and her divorced but for the legalities ex-husband is hinting at a reconciliation. Almost immediately things go from positive to disastrous and Ruthie find herself in danger of losing everything she loves.

I received an Advance Reader Copy from NetGalley for review. Although I wanted to like this book, I just found parts of it so hard to get through. Poor Ruthie Beamish, she does so much for everyone and her life is turned upside down by the events of the novel and especially by her husband's escapades. She did not deserve what happened in the book and there is one instance that she acted so out of character that I found it completely unbelievable.Actually I found many of the events in this story unbelievable. I did get through it though and that's saying something.

I received an advance copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. I started this book and just could not finish. I did not like any of the characters.

I read about a quarter of this and then set it aside because it just didn't hold my attention.

This is a new author to me. Liked how the main character rents out her beach house. We read about different people and their lives.

I love a good thriller and while this isn’t your typical thriller book I loved the mysteries that surrounded it.

The High Season is the first book I read by this author. I love to read “summer beachy books”, and this book was definitely all that!
The main character, Ruthie, had many issues going on in her life. The setting was on the North Fork of Long Island. You rarely hear about that area. I enjoyed the characters, the issues that had to be resolved, and the summer setting. I would recommend this book to the fans of summer settings.

If I hadn't read it now, this is just the sort of read I'd be looking to take along when I head off to our beach destination in summer. I enjoy books about communities that are tony vacation or resort havens. My mother in law lives in one year round and used to live in an one adjacent that was likely sleepy some time before I was born but is rapidly building on seemingly every scrap of available grass and dune. It's remarkable to see a place change with the influx of new business and real estate opportunities. As some of The High Season characters point out throughout the book "Everything changes" and this book is to be commended on showing that well with the positives and negatives. I'm always interested in seeing how locales strike the balance of retaining the things that made it attractive to new residents and business without monetizing to the point that all the charm is lost that attracted people in the first place and the actual full time residents are priced out of living there in any season, not just the off.

Here, we meet Ruthie who experiences a summer in which upon realizing that she's become superfluous in her own life contemplates some desperate measures to hold on to it. She actually undertakes one of them and as appalled as I was about her decision, I couldn't stop reading to see how it would play out. I did find some of her naivete annoying especially with regard to what was happening with the coup being staged at The Belfry and the situation between Mike and Adeline. Still, I was pulling for her to wake up and exercise her own agency. Happily, she does eventually and that made for a nice result. I wasn't clear on why or when exactly she'd lost her voice (it couldn't all be related to having worked for Peter Clay) but I was thrilled when she found it again.

As to other characters who support memorably here, there were some stars. Doe, Lark, Jem, Daniel, Carole, Mindy, Joe and the vintage Patek Phillipe (who did so much without saying a word). Not all were likable but they were pivotal in their way. Doe, the young social media content curator, has a very well done parallel story going on that bumps up against, transverses and dovetail's Ruthie's throughout. She's the ruthless cynic to Ruthie's wide eyed wonder. Lark was one of my favorites and I was pleased with her resolution. Jem, Ruthie's daughter had a story that while not surprising in trajectory or resolution, was well done. For every email she wrote and didn't send to her BFF who'd moved away, I was chanting for her to reconnect. Daniel, the moneyed titan and father of Lark, proved to be a most effective prime mover. The sort that you never saw making the moves in the first place. He wins for patience and capitalizing on the tools who presented themselves to him (in this case, people who were so blinded by their own craven agenda they didn't realize that they were pawns in an ever bigger one). His thread, in particular, was interesting.

There were also some characters who didn't make much of an impression but the two most important and disappointing were Mike and Adeline. Mike's characterisation seemed very thin and truly the most memorable thing I'll take away about him is the moment Ruthie is adamant that he can't possibly be at ease around Adeline's crowd. This didn't make sense to me because it had already been established that Mike came from a moneyed family that had simply run out of it but still retained all the attitudes and characteristics. Of course he was comfortable around Adeline and her cohort, they're his tribe! Ruthie never was and no matter her unease, Mike was right at home. Adeline was a bit better drawn but not much. Even with the background given, I never got much of a sense of her. I wish I had on both because so much in this book is quite well done, but perhaps there wasn't time.

I'd recommend this and I look forward to the next by Blundell (this was my first by her). Definitely take this one vacation.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Too much drama. I felt like I was there, on Long Island, and a part of all the drama. Each character had at least a couple of stressors and it seemed kike everyone was causing or getting stress from everyone else, so it was time to put it down. No book is worth it.
Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Ah, The Hamptons. Where summer is a forever season, dinner parties are presented under shady trees, the wines are exquisite, the women are slender, and the men wear watches worth as much as a house.

Not everyone on Long Island lives in the Hamptons. Some live on the quieter, more bucolic towns on the North Folk. This is where Ruth Beamish lives, for most of the year. Ruth, who used to be an accomplished flirt, is now a mother, estranged from her husband, and she’s a non-profit art museum director. She’s the main character. Too bad she’s so unlikeable.

We meet plenty of other paper doll characters in this book; so many I consigned them to their respective categories: rich board member, richer socialite, lowly employee. I’m sure many of the crème de la crème would be horrified to hear that! And I’m a capitalist- I have nothing against money- but these people didn’t interest me at all.

Thank goodness for Doe, a striving climber, who creates a new script for her life where ever she moves. Social media is her golden ticket. She has a pleasing, positive way about her, and many layers, too. She should have been the main character.

The author is an accomplished bestselling writer and wordsmith. And I highlighted many creative words, phrases, description that dazzled me. But, again, these words seemed just like the glitz that shields and protects the inhabitants of “The High Season”. I couldn’t relate. I do recommend this book, as the art world and life in the Hamptons had its fascinating moments.

Thank you so much to Random House and Netgalley for an ARC.