I really, really loved The Second Home!

When their parents are killed in a car accident, Poppy & Ann must decide what to do with their family's summer home....and hope their adopted brother doesn't come back into the picture. But when he does, it could tear them apart or bring them closer together...

The Second Home by Christina Clancy is an interesting beach or cottage read, perfect to pass the time while social distancing. Ann, Poppy and Michael are teenage siblings who spent their summer holidays with their parents on Cape Cod at their Wellfleet summer home. The novel gives the perspective of each of them throughout. Something went horribly wrong one summer that caused the adolescents to disperse in all directions, never to return to Wellfleet. After the parents were killed in a car accident many years later, the adult siblings returned to the Cape to dispose of their second home. They had been haunted by what had happened there one summer and are uncertain about their relationships. Will they separate again? Or will they bond again as they had when they were younger? Will the past interfere with their future? Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book! This is her first novel and I can’t wait to read more of what she puts out!! I love books about family dynamics and this one was so beautifully written!

I was really looking forward to this book based on the description, but unfortunately, most of the story just made me sad and angry. I enjoyed the writing and the beautiful Cape Cod setting, but I found the characters very frustrating. I will leave it at that without going into spoilers. I also wish there was a better resolution or an epilogue at the end.

A story about nostalgia and summers with family, picking up after death and working out common conflicts that crop in families. I was not getting the feels from this story. I disliked all of the characters but enjoyed some of the descriptive writing.

<b>The Short of It:</b>

The Second Home is the type of story you linger in for awhile. Full of nostalgia and set in a classic Cape Cod setting.

<b>The Rest of It:</b>

The Gordon family has spent many summers at their beloved Wellfleet home on the Cape and have made many good memories there. But one summer, seventeen-year-old Ann experiences something that changes how she feels about the beloved beach house and when reality hits her, there’s no way to ever go back to how it was before.

The story goes back and forth in time. To the past, with the events leading up to Ann’s change of heart and then into the present which finds the Wellfleet home about to be put on the market. The decision to put the house on the market is not an easy one for Ann but what she feels is best for her sister Poppy and herself. However, their adopted brother Michael, who has been estranged from the family for years shows up to claim his piece of the house which forces Ann and Poppy to revisit their past.

At first, I had a hard time connecting with these characters. It took awhile for the author to lay the groundwork for the story but once she did, I was hooked. Clancy did an amazing job at setting the tone for this novel. It’s warm when it needs to be and brimming with nostalgia at times which I personally love. It’s also a story of loss and tragedy. There are many bittersweet moments as I turned the pages but the sense of family is overwhelming in a totally good way.

I did not want this story to end. As I got to those final pages I wanted to experience them without any distractions so I drew them out for as long as I could to ensure distraction-free reading. So good.

Have you read this one? Besides the awesome Cape setting, the house itself was so present and enjoyable even with all of its faults. The Second Home will be on my list of favorites at the end of the year.

For more reviews, visit my blog: <a href="http://bookchatter.net">Book Chatter</a>.

I thought I knew what to expect from this, and in some ways it followed a fairly predictable path, but in others the. plot took some unusual turns. I particularly enjoyed the personal relationships and found the ending quite moving.

Thanks Net Galley for the preview!

I was excited to read a book about cape cod since it is somewhere I have always wanted to visit. I was underwhelmed with the story as a whole. I just didn't feel like I loved any one character. I did feel like the scenery was described in a way that transported me to the cape. I didn't love or hate this story just wished it was a little bit more intriguing.

Ed and Connie Gordon vacation in Cape Cod every summer with their two daughters, Ann and Poppy. When they girls are teenagers, Ed and Connie decide to adopt a son, Michael, who is Ann’s age and she found out he was homeless. Michael’s second summer in the Cape with them something happens to Ann that causes the family to be torn apart. 15 years later, Ed and Connie Gordon die in a tragic car accident which forces the kids to come back together to figure out how to deal with losing their parents and to figure out what to do with their Cape home.

This book sounded like it would be great, but I really struggled getting into it. The first half of the book just moved so slowly. There is a strange relationship that I cannot explain due to spoilers, but it made me rather uncomfortable and turned me off from the story. I did stick with it though, and the book did pick up in the second half. I really enjoyed the children reuniting as adults and dealing with the tragedy of losing their parents. I just wish the author would have gotten to that part sooner.

I do want to give the author credit for her description of Cape Cod. She really did transport the readers and make them feel they were there. I live in Massachusetts, and she did a beautiful job with these descriptions. The Cape feels like a character in the book.

There are trigger warnings you should be aware of before reading this book: rape and suicide.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. Unfortunately, I did not download this in time to read and review. I will pay attention next time and not let it happen again. Thank you.

Ann Gordon and her sister Poppy are planning to sell the family beach house. Their parents are dead, and neither really wants it. They do have an adopted brother Michael, but he is not and has not been in the picture for years, so they have not involved him. Something bad happened years before, when Ann was seventeen, and she never wanted to return after that. This secret she harbored drove the family apart. Michael left for who knows where, and Poppy traveled the world looking for who knows what. Poppy, still looking, is not ready to keep the house because she is not ready to accept the idea of settling in one place after all these years. Just when they are ready to sell, Michael returns, declaring he wants to keep the house and, more importantly, set the record straight about what happened all those years ago. This is the story of what happened and how it affected everyone and of what happens to the house now.

This is a well-done story. I enjoyed following the story of what happened years ago. Often, events like this one have a major impact on the lives of everyone involved, whether they realize it at the time or not. In this case, it definitely impacted the lives of this family, and bringing out the truth and how they dealt with it helped get them through whatever they were going to do with the house as well as to clarify a lot of what had been ruminating in everyone’s mind for years. I enjoyed the setting, which was portrayed quite well by the author. I am not familiar with Cape Cod, so it was interesting and enlightening for me. It was most interesting to watch the three character interact, developing and changing as the book progressed. This is a good book with lots in it. It can make a good summer read or a ready any time of the year. I hope the reader will be as involved with it as I was when I read it. I received this from NetGalley to read and review.

What a good story this turned out to be!
It was a slow start for me - I thought at first that it was another "coming of age" story, but it was much more than that. Very good character development, which I now realize had to be done at the begining to give the plot more depth.
I loved all the main characters, despite their flaws - the overly casual, intellectual parents, the annoyingly bohemian Poppy, the control freak Ann with a plan, and of course the lost boy, Michael.
I am a sucker for family drama and this was a good one! There are a lot of hard feelings and misconceptions, but most are resolved in the most tender way.
The ending is left open, with this reader hoping the best for everyone.
This is a great summertime book because of the Cape Cod setting, but can be enjoyed all year round.

The end of the synopsis for this book says this is a 'story of a family you'll quickly fall in love with, and won't soon forget'. That is so, so true. I fell in love with this story from the start and with each of the characters as soon as I met them. And I'm still thinking about them.

The Second Home delves into the lives of Ann, Poppy, and Michael. The dual timeline of the past and the present help us discover why these three siblings are estranged and what drove them apart. Can the past be reconciled? Or will the family lose their summer home, a home which meant so much to all of them?

This is a very well written book with the words just flowing off of the pages and into my imagination. This debut novel by Christina Clancy is an impressive work of fiction and she is an author I'll be reading again. I can't wait to see what she produces next. The Second Home is a title you definitely need to add to your summer reading list.

Author #Christina Clancy has a wonderful debut this summer with ‘The Second Home’. Told through the shifting perspectives of Ann, Poppy and Michael, this assured and affecting debut captures the
ache of nostalgia for summers past.Its about second homes,second families, and second chances.
Thank you,
#Netgalley, #Christina Clancy, and #St. Martins Press

What a fantastic read! This is sure to be a knockout.

This is a novel about family secrets spanning over years. Poppy, Ann and Michael are teenagers when an event takes place and changes all of their lives. This novel tells the story of what happened, and flashes to present-day where they are all adults and dealing with the repercussions of that fateful summer when it all started.

The Second Home sucked me in right from the first page, and I found myself unable to put it down until I flipped the last page.

With The Second Home, the teen children in the Gordon family find their lives uprooted one fateful summer. Poppy and Ann, biological sisters and adopted brother Michael, learn about love, heartbreak, and betrayal in ways none could have imagined. A number of independent actions and circumstances led to the family being torn apart, as distrust and secrets overwhelm loyalty and honest communication. Fifteen years later, the three are reunited and as truths are revealed, the chance for redemption and a new future is made possible.

(I received a copy of this book from Net Galley and have written an objective review.)

This family drama centered around sisters Ann and Poppy and adopted brother Michael and their long standing family drama. The siblings return to their family home on Cape Cod where the sisters want to sell it and Michael doesn't. I'd call this a saga as the lack of communication that ensued was I'm sure meant to keep the reader interested and reading, however, for me iI don't enjoy stories where the entire plot depends on no one communicating with each other. Combine that with the fact that I found all the characters unlikeable and this ended up being an unsatisfactory story for me.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for the ARC!
I apologize that I wasn't able to post my review here before the pub day.

But I read the book and it's AMAZING.

Right at the first chapter, I knew this would be a emotional read for me. I know that feeling of not wanting to let go of a special place to your family. I fell in love with their family. I wanted to jump into the pages to protect Ann from what was happening to her. Reading this book was a bit painful, but inspiring at the same time...

Beautiful story. Congrats to the author!

3.5 Stars

A marketing director at St. Martin's press offered me a widget for this book back in October. This kind of book actually isn't my "cup of tea", but I love St. Martin's Press and the storyline seemed palatable, so I took a chance. All these months I kept pushing it aside, and as the publishing date recently passed I was shamed into finally picking this up. I needed something nice and easy after a recent all encompassing 5 Star read to "come down" from.

This is a story about a family who hails from Milwaukee, but vacations at an old Cape Cod cottage that's been in the family for generations. Ed and Connie are teachers and have a really good marriage. They have two teenage daughters, Ann and Poppy. Ann is the older blond one, and is quite beautiful and popular at high school. Poppy is the younger one, with dark hair, still finding herself. She was very close with her Dad until his attention transferred to Michael, the teenage boy they recently adopted. He was a classmate at Ann's high school who was orphaned after his mother died. They had become very friendly, and they actually secretly had romantic feelings for each other. So, perhaps it wasn't the best of ideas when Ann suggested to her parents that they adopt Michael. Even so, Connie and Ed were loving adoptive parents towards him. Connie was very good at giving Michael advice about how to control anger, and Ed loved showing Michael his treasured array of tools in the garage. When Poppy felt neglected by her father after Michael's adoption, she found friends on the beach who taught her how to surf, and other things that were not so great like drinking and taking drugs. Poppy embraced surfing, yoga, meditation and other new age practices. As time went on, she became one of those people who have to constantly be travelling. Her family would lose touch with her over long periods of time, as Poppy relocated to different countries and even worked little jobs as she went along to finance her adventures.

Ann was the opposite. When she was at the Cape Cod location, she would advertise her babysitting services. She wanted to save up as much money as possible for college. That's how she wound up babysitting at the Shaw house, a move that would change her life and those around her forever. The Shaws had money. To be accurate, the wife Maureen was the wealthy half of the marriage. Their home was out of place, modern and cold looking compared to the ancient homes on Cape Cod that were sometimes in disrepair, but at least had character. One day when Ann was alone in their house after dropping off the Shaw boys at a party, she decided to investigate in the Shaw's master bedroom. She looked at Maureen Shaw's clothing in the closet, and then decided to strip in front of the large mirror at one end off the bedroom. While she was admiring her naked body in the mirror, Mr. Anthony Shaw unexpectedly burst into the room. His reaction was not what she was expecting. Instead of behaving appropriately by being shocked and withdrawing in shame, he admired what he was looking at and made no effort to hide his arousal. This event was just the first spark to a series of events that later impacted Ann and her family.

This book goes back and forth between two time periods. As the book begins, the parents Ed and Connie Gordon have passed away, and Ann (the responsible one) is handling selling the homes. She is in the Cape Cod home with the realtor. Of course Poppy is off God knows where, but Ann is concerned about the whereabouts of Michael, who she hasn't seen in years. A lot of angst is spent regarding the sale of this treasured home that has been in the family like a jewel for generations. I won't expand further on the plot to leave it to unfold for prospective readers.

For me this is what I call an "OK read". It was good enough to hold my interest, but I wasn't wowed by it either. It's not my usual genre as I'm more inclined towards biographies and historical fiction. I also thought the book could have been edited down some.

This seemed sort of a coming of age story for me. I was disappointed the novel included a nearly consensual style rape scene with more description than I like. I was disappointed in how naive Ann was when it came to relationships with men. I was disappointed at how dumb Ann was when it came to Anthony, never questioning him and his schemes. And Michael was just as dumb, when he had previously identified Anthony's questionable character. I was disappointed in Ann's character altogether. She was mean to her sister and not likable at all. There were many aspects of the plot I thought were not plausible, such as Michael living at the Cape Cod area for years yet no one who matters realizing he is there. And there are jumps in time, such as when Ann goes to visit Maureen in chapter 25. In between current era chapters, it seemed in the present but was not. I found that a bit confusing and a problem in the ongoing plot structure. What I did like were the setting descriptions. Clancy is good at that.

This is a novel for readers who like a coming of age style story with unlikable characters, a dysfunctional family lacking in communication, and issues with the plot structure. Also, if you don't mind a denouement filled with “I should have known” and “Why did I believe” and so on.

I received a complimentary egally of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.