The Second Home follows the story of Ann, Poppy and Michael, middle class midwesterners who make the trip each summer to Cape Cod to stay at their family home. Now, it’s not quite as swanky as it sounds. It’s off the main road and doesn’t have a clear view of the beach, but it’s enough for them. It’s got charm, it’s been in the family forever and it’s home.
I feel like those details alone are enough to make the story different from every single summer read about entitled East Coast millionaires who summer on the Cape. But add to all this the fact that Michael is a friend/foster child who isn’t adopted until the age of 17 and it’s a lot different.
I really enjoyed this one. I love books that take place on Montauk, or Nantucket or Cape Cod, even though I’ve actually never been to any of those places. But they sound idyllic. Modest cottages on a private or quiet beach. I can just imagine myself sitting there with a floppy hat, breezy cover-up and a glass of white wine. And of course, I’d be reading this book.
I thought the family dynamics were spot on and I loved the richly drawn characters-especially the hippy parents. The only reason this one wasn’t a 5 for me was mainly that I found some of the later details hard to believe. That the secrets that were kept would actually be kept and that in the age of social media, that people could stay hidden or disappear when they actually live basically around the corner.
Still, this is one to pick-up for your non-existent vacation this summer. So pull up a lawn chair by the baby pool in your backyard, pour yourself some ice tea and escape to Cape Cod! Special thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced e-galley in exchange for my honest review. This one releases June 2! Get your copy (and support your favorite indie bookstore!)

Beach reads have been my comfort food during these past few months! And since my beach trip has been canceled for this year, this book made me feel like I was there. In the middle of a family’s drama, but at the beach anyway!

A very wonderful and enjoyable read. The writing is deliciously elegant and you definitely felt for the characters. A great multi-leveled story. I cannot wait to read more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC.

This book is centered on family drama of two sisters, an adopted brother, and their. parents.. As family dramas go....an incident with the youngsters causes them to become estranged.for over a decade. When the parents are killed together in an automobile accident, they are brought back together to settle estate and sell the family houses. The siblings then must face the times in their past events and conversations that were the could-have, would-have, should-have times which blew their relationships apart...and now they need to work together to figure those out and try to rebuild those relationships. The author plays out the characters very well and brings their love of the family home(s) into the weaving of the story. It was an enjoyable read and has all the components of a good book that will be a must-read for many. I received and ARC of this book from NetGalley and St. Martin's Press in return for an honest review, which this has been. #NetGalley #TheSecondHome

This was a tough book to read, partly because of the subject matter. It also took me until about a third of the way through for the story to "hook" me. Partly that was due to the structure. The story opens in the present from Ann's point of view. She is at the Cape House and it's clear her parents have passed away recently and she and her sister are working on selling this house and the one in Wisconsin. We are told early on that something happened years ago during one summer and the story mostly moves to the past as we follow the stories of Ann, Poppy (her sister) and Michael (their adoptive brother). It occasionally moves to the present but mostly spends time developing what happened that summer. As I said, it took me some time to become "hooked" but eventually I became invested in the characters. I went back and forth between thinking Ann was a total twit to wanting her to figure things out, but over all (without revealing spoilers), I had to remind myself that she (and Michael) were teenagers at the time, with their frontal lobes not being fully developed. In some ways, the story felt contrived to me because I didn't believe that people could be so easily manipulated by a complete jerk (I could use much stronger terminology), but I decided to let it go and I really liked the ending and what ended up happening to each of them. I also really liked many of the cast of supporting characters, including Maureen (Mo), Kit (Carol), Brad, Shelby, and Deedee. And the final reason I rounded up to a 4 is because I loved the setting and it made me want to be there and see this place!

As a debut novel, I thought this was a pretty solid start. As I mentioned, some of the plot elements felt a bit contrived, but overall, I thought it all tied together pretty well. I would definitely read another book by this author.

Thanks to #ChristinaClancy, #NetGalley, and #StMartinsPress for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wow this is a great family story!!!!!!!!!!!!! Really enjoyed reading this one and the family dynamics. The Gordon's are a 4 person family until one summer when they adopt a young teenager named Michael. They then have three children-Anne, Poppy, & Michael. All three teenagers and the three children get along great. Until an unfortunate situation that splits the three teens and makes them estranged for years. Then they're parents die together in a car crash. The three now adults have to come together for the first time in 10+ years . Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for my honest review

At its core, this book was a family drama. The dynamics, underlying hopes, dreams and doubts. And the one event that changed it all.
For me, I enjoyed all of the Gordon family characters, they were relatable, likable, different in their dreams, and personality. And when that one event ripped them all apart, coming back together was harder than thought. Missed opportunities, and wrong decisions, were partially to blame.
In the end it all felt very authentic. Something that could happen to any family. And because of it, it felt utterly real, heartbreaking, and emotional.
The ending wasn’t as satisfying as the beginning. I needed more, a longer conclusion, something more to restore them all. It felt rushed, not finished, and the characters barely had time to heal. I needed more than just implications.

Every now and then I crave a good dramatic mystery. Especially one that’s focused on family, since family ties always hold something special in a way. The Second Home by Christina Clancy felt like it would fulfill that need seamlessly.

The story started out very strong. Many new occurences were presented tot he reader from the beginning, and new characters were introduced. I couldn’t wait to discoverhow everything would fit together. The best thing that could happen for me in a book like this is when it keeps me questioning the outcome until the very end. Unfortunately, about halfway through I saw exactly how the entire story would play out, and I ended up being right. However much I love being right, I always prefer to be surprised when it comes to a book.

Looking back on my reading experience, I do have to say that I did enjoy this book a lot. Especially the different characters who told the story managed to capture my attention, and the relationships between them were definitely interesting to read about.

This was a dark family drama. While there were some details that were too implausible to accept, for the most part, the storyline kept me intrigued and invested. I think what I most appreciated about this novel was how the family house was almost a character in itself. The ways in which Ann, Michael, and Poppy — three siblings caught in a mess of lies and tragedy — interact with the house, the land, and the water was beautifully crafted.

For the most part I enjoyed this story, but one of my biggest pet peeves in stories is when a lot of problems could have been solved by some decent communication. That being said, I thought that the characters and the situations were developed pretty well and the story was interesting to read.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This book was a nice summer read and a trip to Cape Cod that was much needed.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This one. Oh, this book is going to stay with me for a long time. I finished it and already want to go back to re-read it. It reminded me a lot of Celeste Ng's "Everything I Never Told You" which isesser know but better than "All the Fireflies Everywhere." Anyway, I digress.

Have you ever been able to pinpoint the exact moment that the choice you made or that thing you just said or experienced, was the very moment that your entire life changed? Yes? No? Because, I can. And so can Ann Gordon and any reader of this book

When she's 17, something happens to Ann. Something you, reader, will most likely see because you know the evil of people. But Ann, sadly, doesn't. And, anyway, when you were 17, did you sometimes want to play with... Evil? With living a life recklessly? Testing the waters? And so she does. But that single moment will change everything between her, her siblings, and her parents.

And then there's the siblings: free-spirited Poppy and the adopted brother, Michael. Who, also, can pinpoint the exact moments in which the choices they made altered their lives.

Now the siblings have a choice: their parents have died and they will either sell the summer house in Cape Cod or keep it. The deliberation, though, will cause the family to dig up buried secrets. Buried conversations. Buried emotions. Years and years of words that should have been spoken and never were.

Hands-down, this is one of the best debut novels I've read. Clancy's voice is lyrical yet powerful and emotional. And, the character development is so perfect that you'll see the life-changing moment in each character's life. I'm just in awe.

I believe it's being marketed as a teen book but I'm almost inclined to say that it felt like I'd be better categorized as an adult fiction that teens could read in an English class. I think it would make adults reflective of their lives and choices and understand how their lives became THEIR lives. And a teen could understand how certain events can affect who they become. See, it's a subtle difference but I think it'd be better appreciated if marketed towards adults.

I can't wait to read what books follow this debut!

Family drama about 3 siblings who must decide what to do with their family beach house. This book took a little while to get into, picked up in the middle but then lost me at the end. The beginning chapters about one of the siblings - Poppy - didn't interest me and I found myself skimming. The character of Ann is not the most likeable character. All in all, this was just an ok read for me.

The Second Home - Net Galley - 2/20/20

Ann is at her parents' Cape Cod summer home, waiting for a realtor. It is February, very cold in the unheated house but she is not wearing a coat because she wants her carefully chosen outfit to wow the realtor.

Her parents have both recently been killed in a tragic vehicular crash, where the driver of a truck suffered a seizure, crossed his lane and ran into them. Ann is a single mother of a son named Noah and although she has a good job she lives in Boston and has to pinch pennies. She is also thinking ahead and wants to use some of the proceeds from sale of the second home for a college fund for her son.

As evidenced by my description in the first paragraph, Ann is programmed to present herself and her life in a style to elicit respect, admiration, and/or praise from others. Her parents were both teachers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where Ann and her younger sister Poppy were born and raised. They had the second home on Cape Cod because the grandfather of their dad, Ed Gordon, purchased it about a century before. The family spent the entire summer of every year there, surrounded by modern large summer homes built by those much wealthier than themselves. But no one enjoyed their home and their time on the cape more than the Gordons.

Her son Noah does not want her to sell the house but she thinks financial sense trumps sentiment. Noah sees it as a link to his beloved grandparents. Given its long history and the fact that it is packed with "historical" furnishings and decor, Ann is sure that her half of the proceeds will relieve her financial stress. Heaven only knows what restless irresponsible Poppy will do with her half. It took her two weeks to open the email Ann sent her about their parents' accident and deaths. They agreed Poppy would fly into Milwaukee and sell their parents' home while Ann would make the necessary trips to Cape Cod to sell the second home.

Imagine Ann's surprise when the realtor tells her the house isn't worth much at all, that "historical" does not mean valuable on the housing market unless she is lucky enough to find someone interested in its history. It has lots of issues, not the least of which is being locate just off a state highway. Turns out, this is just the beginning of some dark revelations for Ann Gordon.

The son that her parents adopted as a teenager, Michael Davis, spent two summers in the Cape Cod home with the family before he disappeared out of their lives. Michael's mother had died of HIV and the Gordons recognized his goodness and potential and just plain loved the kid, so they asked him if they could adopt him legally. Until midway through the second summer in the second home, things went well. Then things unraveled.

The title, "The Second Home" is a play on words. It refers to the cape home being a second home for the Gordon family but also being a second home/second chance of sorts for Michael Davis. Turns out that Michael didn't go far when he "disappeared" from the Gordons' lives - he lives on the cape year round, is partners in a landscaping business and has invented a toy that is selling like gangbusters in Asia. He gets wind of the Gordon house being sold and exerts his legal right as one of the heirs to try to block the sale. Poppy decides to leave the home in Milwaukee in the hands of her new boyfriend (the newest in a very long parade) and drives to the cape. Hence, all three Gordon kids are there for the face-off about the house's sale.

The author uses the highly popular device of switching time periods and switching characters to fill in the back story of each character. Frankly, none of these characters were very interesting - Ann, the older responsible child with straight As, highly popular and talented in everything, and Poppy the younger sister who follows Ann around wrapped in an aura of adoration. Then Michael comes along. Poppy and he become fast friends, best buddies really, and Ann doesn't really have a problem with that because she has been physically attracted to Michael since she met him at school, long before her parents decided to adopt him. She sublimates her attraction by being more involved with school and her friends, spending little time alone with Michael.

During that last summer, the one during which Michael disappeared and Ann became pregnant, Poppy learned to surf and also learned to use drugs to escape life. She has spent all of her adult years since college wandering the world, using up men and drugs along the way. Now the pending sale of their parents' summer home has brought these three people back together.

The writing itself is good, the story is just not very interesting and none of these characters are all that likeable in my opinion. Mostly they are clichés and the story is fairly predictable. By the end of the Prologue, it is easy to guess what will happen. At least one character will HAVE to become a drug addict. That seems to be an unwritten rule in current new literature. If Poppy had truly done all the drugs and lived as described in this book, she would have either been dead by age 30 or completely psychotic. How does her life of irresponsibility and drug abuse entitle her to a happy ending? The substance abuse doesn't compute with the yoga and meditation - she couldn't possibly have enough of a mind left to meditate with. All throughout the book people are telling the Gordon girls about how special their family was - what? The older one gets pregnant in her senior year of high school and the younger one becomes a substance abuser before she is old enough to drive. No one in that family trusts each other enough to discuss events with truth and honesty. They seemed pretty dysfunctional to me.

I would like to thank the publisher and Net Galley for allowing me to read an ARC in exchange for an honest review. 3 stars from me, mostly due to the writing itself was quite good but I just didn't care for the characters or their storylines. However, I would definitely read anything this author writes in the future.

I love a good summer read. One that takes place on the coast, a family story with a bit of drama but is also relatable on some level. I thought The Second Home had potential, and it started off that way but for me I just couldn't find anything to hold my interest. I started to resent the parents, kids, all of the other characters. They annoyed me and so I gave up around the 50% mark. I skimmed to the end just to see where the author left things. This book has a lot of high ratings so I'll take all responsibility.

Ann’s parents had recently been killed in an accident and she was desperate to rid herself of her family’s ramshackle summer home in Wellfleet, though it had been in their family for generations. Her urgency to sell also included the fact that she didn’t want her estranged brother Michael to know she was selling. They’d lost contact years earlier, after an especially horrific summer, and the anger she felt towards him had worsened over the years.

Michael and Ann were the same age and had become best friends at school so, since he got along well with her family, Ann convinced them to adopt him. The summer of 1999 was his first in Wellfleet, which he spent wrestling with his feelings about Ann. She had taken on a babysitting job with the Shaws, a rich family, contrasting their lives and loving how Mr. Shaw made her feel. While they tried to work through their issues, Poppy was busy getting high after falling in with a rough crowd of surfing locals. That summer changed the rest of their lives – forever.

Told through flashbacks and the present time, Ann, Michael and Poppy’s love for their summer home and the memories from Wellfleet (both good and bad) that tied them together, sink deeply into the reader. I was fully invested in their stories, and eagerly turned pages hoping the ending everything would end on a satisfying note.

Highly recommended for Adults.

The Second Home was an easy read and even though I didn't necessarily enjoy the story line it was written well enough to get me to the end.

My issue with this book is that there is much suspension of belief needed, when the premise of the whole book is that this wonderful family with caring parents allows everything to fall apart in one summer.

This is a fine beach read, but not a story that will stick with me. Thanks to Net Galley for the free ARC for an honest opinion.

This is a family drama that centers around the family vacation home in Cape Cod. The Gordon family resides in Milwaukee, but go to Cape Cod yearly for their summer vacation and they all love the home there. The family consists of the parents, two daughters, Ann and Poppy, and an adopted son, Michael. Michael was adopted when he was already sixteen, so he had not been in the family long before there was a horrible event at Cape Cod which changed the family dynamics terribly.

There are secrets and lies here that transform this family, especially all the children, into an estranged group. The characters are interesting and the story kept my attention. I enjoy reading books about families. I actually thought Poppy was a really interesting character, even though much of the story centered around Ann. Some of the story is a little outrageous though - some of the circumstances just not believable.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press through Netgalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

The horrors of that summer on Cape Cod not only affected Ann Gordon, but painfully destroyed the very fiber of the bonds that cemented her family’s very soul. Instead, the poison of the secrets kept caused the familial rift to fester. Fifteen years later, after her parents’ deaths, she must come face to face with her past, the secrets and the lies. Is she ready? Are any of them?

Christina Clancy’s THE SECOND HOME is a tale of flaws, of human frailties, insecurities and the selfish actions of emotionally immature adults caught up in the past. Heavy on atmosphere, rich in detail, one can smell the ocean and feel the tension that should never have existed.

I really wanted to like these characters, I did like the parents, but the three “adult” children who let years go by as they each “escaped” into their own worlds failed to impress me. The extremes they went to were heartbreaking to witness and frustrating to see. Each one of the three were selfish in their own way, judgmental and holding back things that should have been shared. One even seemed to be extraneous, an unnecessary addition to the story.

All in all, a family saga that went on too many years with too much pain, taking too many victims in its wake.

I received a complimentary ARC edition from St. Martin's Publishing Group! This is my honest and voluntary review.

I was initially drawn to this book not only by the beautiful cover but also by the synopsis of this family that has this amazing second home that they live at in the summer. They travel from Milwaukee all the way to the Massachusetts Cape to soak up the salt air each summer.

The Second Home is split into two parts. Honestly, the whole first part I found myself yelling at this book multiple times. It was like a train wreck you could see coming. I found myself saying “no, no, no” out loud and then putting down the book for a little time to pass before I picked it up again. I got angry with the character like I knew them. But I always picked it back up again, because I had to know what happened.

Part one is about the one perfect summer the Gordon’s have as a whole family at the cape. Followed by the next summer where everything falls apart. Part two is years later after the unexpected death of their parents, beings the estranged siblings together to the one place that changed their lives in one way or another ... the Wellfleet house.

I found myself submerged in the Gordon’s life. I wished they would have talked more, fought for their family and what they knew couldn’t be true. But I also could see how they felt it was easier to not face the truth, if you were not willing to even acknowledge it to yourself.

I really enjoyed the way this book was written and was surprised to find out this was Christina Clancy debut novel. I loved how she wrote from each of the siblings point of view. We could really see how they were thinking and feeling in every moment. Clancy was so detailed throughout, that I could close my eyes and picture each character, both the living ones and the places that took on a life of their own throughout the novel.

I know it is vague. But I find myself having a hard time writing a review and not giving anything away.

The Second Home is out June 2, and if you love a good family drama then you will enjoy this one! Thank you Netgalley and St Martins press for the eGalley copy to read and provide an honest review.