Thank you to Netgalley, St. Martins press and the Author, Christina Clancy for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I chose this book because it sounded intriguing and the cover was really nice and I literally could not put it down, I finished it in one day.
I loved the family dynamics, the interaction of the family members and the way the book was written from each siblings point of view.
My first read from this author and it won't be my last!

This one was such an awesome book! I was really impressed by it and am so happy I was able to read it. I recommend this one to read ASAP!

I liked this book quite a bit. It's a good story about siblings and the different ways people who were raised in the same house can have such a different view of events they experienced together.. The characters were well developed and the timeline, which follows this family over several decades, was easy to follow and made the book more interesting than a beach read, which is what I thought it might be. I always enjoy \books about family secrets and this one delivered.

I received this book complimentary from NetGalley but all opinions are my own.
Oh what a lovely surprise of a book.
This was so well done. I truly enjoyed this one. The characters were interesting and thoughtful. The plot was unique and full. The setting made me want to move to a cape. This was just so good. I would love to read a sequel or just another book by the author as this one is really excellent.

What a great beach read! Having vacationed at Cape Cod it was fun to read about it. I enjoyed this story although about 2/3 of the way through you had a pretty good idea how it was going to turn out; just didn't know what tracks it would take to get there. The author's writing enabled you to picture what this house looked and smelled like. I could see it in my mind the whole time I was reading. The character development gave you an idea of what each sibling and the parents were like. You felt like you knew each character. I was really sorry when the book ended. Wonderful story and an easy read. Thanks to Net Galley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I just finished an ARC of The Second Home. I put off reading it because my sister and I are in the position of having to deal with our family second home, and I am feeling a little raw about it. Well, our complications are nothing like theirs! Makes me feel better about our mess. Anyway I did enjoy this story about complicated family relationships. Sometimes it is a house that can help bring people together.

Two siblings and two educator parents in Milwaukee bring a teenage boy into their home, eventually adopting him. Ann and Poppy love Michael and are thrilled to have him be a member of their family, until one disastrous trip to the family’s second home in Cape Cod. Michael, Poppy and Ann will live the next 15 years of their lives estranged, until a family catastrophe brings them all back together in that second home.

I loved the concept of this book at first sight. What would it take for a “perfect” family to bring another child, no less a teenager, into their home? How would two teenage girls react to a new member of the family, especially a boy? How would this teenage boy assimilate and feel comfortable being a member of a firmly established group?

Christina Clancy does an amazing job of weaving these five people into one coherent family group. Even though Ann and Michael are the same age, and Poppy is younger, no one feels left out of the family unit. Ed and Connie, the parents, do everything they can to keep the family together and functioning normally. Until that summer in Cape Cod when the family splinters irreparably. Or is it? Because of Clancy’s ability to write this story in three voices, we see each sibling’s side of the story and how their lives were changed.

Honestly, this was absolutely a “can’t put it down” type of book. I wanted to find out how the pieces would or wouldn’t come back together. Excellent book.


4.75 stars


This review will be posted at BookwormishMe.com on 19 May 2020 .

The Second Home was a wonderful read. I really enjoyed it. The characters were developed nicely and the story never felt rushed nor did it drag on. It was so realistic that I felt that I really knew the characters.
The story was woven in and out with several different characters and worked really nicely. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading. It was hard to put down.
The beach setting was also very nice.

I have to admit I was immediately drawn to this book for the location! Much of my childhood was spent vacationing in Cape Cod so it holds a special place in my heart.
When a summer tragedy- followed by poor communication-occurs between siblings Ann, Poppy, their parents and their adopted brother Michael the family has ripped apart and years pass before they can begin to try to piece it all together again...but has too much damage been done?
I adored this story. It was beautifully written and while I did feel frustrated by the miscommunication between the characters (signs of a good writer when the reader is yelling at a book character!) I was completely encaptured by the plot.
It's a story of family, love, loss and above all, following your heart for the truth. I loved this book and would recommend for anyone looking for a heartwarming read.

This book was an emotional roller coaster. Wow! I loved it so much!!! Couldn't recommend more!

Thank you, Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Initially I had a hard time engaging with this debut novel, but at around 30% or so things started to click for me when the pace kicked up. The story is set between 1999 and 2015 (with a 2017 epilogue) and takes place primarily on Cape Cod. I thought the author did a great job transporting the reader to the Cape. There are three narrators—Ann and Poppy and their adopted brother Michael. I would call this a darkish family drama, a “genre” I have recently discovered I enjoy.

Relationships can be messy and this family has messiness in spades. There is love, certainly. But there is also resentment, disrespect, mistrust, alternative facts, and worst of all—lack of communication. I don’t know if there are really families out there who despite loving each other fail to trust in one another despite the fact that the mistrusted hasn’t really done anything to deserve to be doubted. In fact, I think that was carried a bit too far in this story, which in addition to the slow start, led me to drop a star.

Other than that, I found this richly complex mini-saga engrossing and enjoyable. True, one of the narrators is not terribly likeable, which is usually a deal buster for me, but somehow that didn’t really turn me off this time. I think the reason for that is because she has to be that way to make the story work. In any event, I liked this one enough to hit the “follow button” for Ms. Clancy, and I will very likely seek out her next book. The Second Home is recommended for those who enjoy blacker family dramas.

Thank you Net Galley, St. Martin’s Press, and Ms. Christina Clancy for gifting me an ARC of this novel. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.

It's very difficult to believe that this is Christina Clancy's first book. It reads like it comes from a confident and seasoned author. While there are (of course) stumbles along the way, for the most part, I just loved <i>The Second Home</i>. I found it... <b>beguiling</b>. Both in its premise and its acute sense of place.

With one eye firmly on the past, <i>The Second Home</i> introduces us to the Gordons - Ed and Connie, the loving parents, Ann the elder sister, free-spirited Poppy, and their adopted brother Michael. While they live in Milwaukee, their hearts reside in their much-loved summer home on the Cape - and its there that the Gordons' lives change forever. During one summer, Ann develops a secret that threatens to tear the family asunder, and when the repercussions finally land, they are devastating - for both the siblings and their parents.

Fifteen years later, Connie and Ed have died, and it's up to Ann and Poppy to sort out what will happen to their beloved home on the Cape. When Michael makes an unexpected return - everything that the sisters believed to be true is up-ended, and their memories are opened up to reveal new truths, like prisms of light.

A caveat that much of the book rides on miscommunication, which is annoying. The ending is also very rushed, and I wanted much more time to savour the new relationships forming. In the beginning, I felt Poppy was a waste of a POV - but over time, she became one of my favourites. Always searching for her place in the circle, always looking for inclusion. Never settling, never still, always riding that wave. She's a fascinating bundle of insecurities and bursting with love that she's never able to express.

Many reviewers have written about their dislike of Ann. While I agree she's not all that likable as an adult, I think what happened to her justifies that prickliness and distrust. At her most sensitive and at that cusp-age of just sixteen, she had everything ripped apart and scattered to the winds. It's no wonder that she struggles to reconnect with Michael, or Poppy for that matter. Everyone she loved went away, in the end.

I felt a real sense of grief over the deaths of Ed and Connie, and most of all, for Michael. It's Michael who is the true tragic figure in this story - on the brink of a family, and only to have it torn out from under his feet. I loved what Clancy did with his character, but I so wish he could have had that final moment with his parents, and again, I wanted so much <i>more</i> from his reunion with Ann. That ending is just too quick, like the blink of an eye.

Oh, but the <i>journey</i> toward that ending is gorgeous. The writing is slyly funny in parts and beautifully volatile and vulnerable in others. The descriptions of the Cape and Wellfleet and Milwaukee and even all of the exotic locales that Poppy visits - you could just <i>sink</i> into them, like a languid drowning, like the pond that Ann slipped into and never really returned from ... this story is like that, you submerge yourself only to be changed, the water like silk scarves, pulling you under and away.

<b>Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review</b>.

I liked this book. It has 3 siblings returning to the family home in Cape Cod to dispose of the family home after the death of their parents. Ann and Poppy are in favor of selling but adopted brother Michael has a different idea. As the three go through generations of stuff in the attics they discover some unsettling family secrets and need to decide if they are a family. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I predict this will be the beach read of summer 2020. Immersible, with wonderfully crafted characters that the reader gets to know and care about. One of them being a selfish and evil villain who’s rash actions and manipulations absolutely alter the lives of all those around him, including those of the three main characters of this story, who were teens at the time.

Fluctuating from past to present we get acquainted with the Gordon’s, migrating each summer from Milwaukee to the Cape for the summer with their two daughters and a recently adopted son, Michael, all close in age. Michael has never known such a family bond and is easily loved and accepted by his new sisters. He’s never experienced what it’s like to make memories of a home. He doesn’t have pleasant first-home memories, much less second home.

The summer home is situated in a cove off of Wellfleet on the Cape, and is itself a character in this novel. I’ve only visited the Cape once, a bucket list item for me, but what an impression it made on me. This budding author brought it all back deliciously for me, one of my favorite memories. The scents, the sounds, the entire sense of it all, that it was like revisiting an old happy memory. Many of my favorite authors have used Cape Cod as a background for their novels so I feel very attached to it and the reason why I had to see it for myself.

This is to be experienced, so I won’t go any further. I’ll just urge you to allow yourself to get acquainted with Michael, Ann and Poppy, each so different, but so vital to the connection with the house, and with each other. Their stories resonate for me days after I’ve finished this wonderfully written debut novel. Kudos to Ms Clancy. Loved it, and can’t wait to see what you’ll do next. A strong 4+ rating for this one.

Watch for this one from St. Martin’s Press on June 2, 2020.
Thank you to #netgalley for my review copy

⭐⭐⭐⭐
Thanks to #netgalley and #stmartinspress for advanced review of #thesecondhome
I was pulled in to the Gordon family's life from the first few pages. The book is a well developed look at how families grow together, grow apart and all the details that produce a legacy, good and bad, through the generations.
The Gordons from Milwaukee have a summer home on the Cape. It's been in their family for generations.
This story unfolds with interaction between sisters Ann and Poppy , and Michael, who was adopted (as a teenager) by their parents.
When Ann finds out she's pregnant, the family is never the same. Free spirit Poppy takes off on her own journey of self discovery , and Michael disappears. When the parents die, all Ann wants to do is sell everything and move on.
There is much to savor in this well written book. I definitely recommend in to the Gordon family's life from the first few pages. The book is a well developed look at how families grow together, grow apart and all the details that produce a legacy, good and bad, through the generations.
The Gordons from Milwaukee have a summer home on the Cape. It's been in their family for generations.
This story unfolds with interaction between sisters Ann and Poppy , and Michael, who was adopted (as a teenager) by their parents.
When Ann finds out she's pregnant, the family is never the same. Free spirit Poppy takes off on her own journey of self discovery , and Michael disappears. When the parents die, all Ann wants to do is sell everything and move on.
There is much to savor in this well written book. I definitely recommend.

I really liked this book at the beginning. It felt like a good family novel although there were some issues with the character of Michael and his situation. That was not very believable. The character of Ann went from a nice girl to a mean revengeful one, and it made me not like her at all. The character of Poppy for me was unnecessary. I skimmed through the chapters about her. She just didn't feel like part of the story. Also there were a lot of inconsistencies in the book and about 3/4 of the way through it I felt like giving up but kept going. The ending was pretty rushed for me as well.

Not a bad read. It reminds me of We Were Liars, only a bit more family-oriented. A slow, steady speed.

This book is about a young lady who tries to grow up too quickly, finds herself a victim in trouble and what happens when you’re too afraid to ask for help and the damage that ripples through the families involved.

I loved everything about this book. You connect with all the main characters. Ann, Poppy, and Michael all bring so many great qualities to this story and they all mesh extremely well even though the characters themselves don’t get along perfectly. It would be the ultimate beach read and I can’t wait to read more from this author!

The Second Home by Christina Clancy is a story about family secrets and lies. After a family tragedy, Ann returns to her family's summer home 15 years after the summer where everything changed. The story then flashes back to that summer. Told through the eyes of Ann, her younger sister Poppy, and their adopted brother, Michael the events of that summer are revisited. Each sibling has a different story to tell leading up to how this all culminates. The story then returns to the present where the siblings' relationships are different, but they are brought back together and must come to an agreement as the fate of that summer home is decided. This story is a tragic one, and it's a hard read given what happens. This is also a story that involves lies (and manipulation) that have a huge impact over all the years. This is a well-written story of family, but again be advised what goes down is heavy. Thanks to NetGalley for the early look at this June 2020 release.