3.5 stars

One of the things I remember most about Brianna Wolfson’s debut novel Rosie-Colored Glasses, which I had read back in 2018, was how emotionally resonant the book was for me. At the time, it was one of my favorite reads of the year (one that I rated 5 stars of course) and, more significantly, it was one of the few books that actually brought tears to my eyes as I was reading. There were so many things I loved about that book – the story, the characters, and most memorable for me, the lyrical writing that made the story flow so beautifully.

Given that experience, it should come as no surprise that when I heard Wolfson would have a new book out this summer, aptly titled That Summer in Maine, I was ecstatic and knew right away that I had to get my hands on a copy as soon as possible. Of course, this also meant that I went into this book with very high expectations, to the point that I automatically assumed that I would love this one as much as I did her debut. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and in the end, it fell quite a bit short of expectations for me. While Wolfson’s second book was written in mostly the same lyrical style that had captivated me in her debut – plus it covered the same theme of flawed families as well as the bond between mothers and daughters -- everything else felt so different this time around. Not only did I find it difficult to get into the story this time (it took me until close to the halfway mark before I felt pulled in), I also didn’t feel anything for the characters, which really surprised me. I had loved the characters in Rosie-Colored Glasses so much that, when I had gotten to the end of that story, I didn’t feel ready to let them go yet. With That Summer in Maine, I actually felt annoyed with the characters for majority of the story. Perhaps it was the inconsistency in the way the characters were portrayed -- Hazel and Eve were supposed to be 16-year-old teenagers, yet throughout most of the first half of the story, Hazel’s actions and behavior made her come across like a much younger child, while the descriptions of Eve in the second half made it seem like she could pass for someone much older, perhaps a young adult even. The unevenness of the characters’ portrayals from one section to another was a bit jarring, which definitely affected the flow of the story for me. Also, using the format of writing letters to recount Jane’s and Susie’s experiences with Silas during that fateful summer, while it made sense based on their story taking place in the past, the writing style felt a bit out of place with the rest of the narrative, almost like I was reading two different books. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but Wolfson has a unique writing style that was one of the key aspects of why I adored her debut novel as much as I did, so the contrast in style with those segments was particularly felt.

While the story and characters didn’t really appeal to me this time around, one of the things I appreciated was the depth with which Wolfson depicted the characters’ struggles in dealing with the complex family dynamics at the center of this particular story. The idea of two families from completely different walks of life, previously unknown to each other, discovering the truth of their connection via two daughters born from two different affairs with the same man – it’s a pretty complicated premise that Wolfson handled well in the overall scheme of things.

Though this one didn’t quite live up to my expectations, especially compared to this author’s debut novel, it was still a good read overall – basically, this was a book that I liked well enough, but didn’t love. With that said, I still look forward to reading Wolfson’s next work, though I probably should be more cautious about not going in with high expectations next time.

Received ARC from MIRA / Harlequin via NetGalley.

Overall I enjoyed this book and I feel as though it explains an clear message about the importance of the mother- daughter relationship and not letting it slip you by. The story focuses mostly on one mother daughter relationship as their relationship starts to sip away unnoticed to the mother as she remarries and has other children. As the daughter meets her biological father and new sister her mother, Jane experiences the first time away from her daughter and what she has been missing out on since remarrying.

Both the mother and daughter's personalities and thoughts are relatable to the situations they go through. I also love that the author chose to reveal more behind the story by comparing the mother, Jane's, whom shared a similar experience. At times I felt like there was something missing and I would have liked to see more background information, Towards the end I felt like the book sped through certain parts that could have been expanded on more. I still enjoyed the book throughout through and would recommend it to anyone looking for a book about mothers and daughters, the conflicts they may go through and the moments that connect them.

It's a poignant, well written and engrossing story that kept me hooked till the end.
I liked the strong female characters as much as I like the interesting male characters.
It's a book about motherhood, growing up, discovering new sides to relationship and accepting the change.
It's the first book I read by this author but it won't surely be the last as Ms Wolfson is a talented storyteller.
I loved what I read and I strongly recommend it.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Brianna Wolfson is new to me, and I was quite impressed with her. She certainly has a way with words because That Summer in Maine is absolutely beautifully written. The flow, the word choices, everything; it just all comes together so well. The story is a bit different than what I've read in women's fiction, and like them or not, it's so easy to get wrapped up in the characters' lives. As mother to a beautiful, strong-willed daughter - many of those growing up years spent as a single mother, and then a blended family - it wasn't hard to connect with these characters. There were some aspects of the story that stretched the believability scale, at least for me, but this is fiction after all. It's a little over the top at times, but it's not so far out there that it diminished my enjoyment of the read. All in all, this one is about family - what makes a family and all the drama that goes along with it. It's an emotional story, and one I won't soon forget.

This review was commissioned by Harper Collins.
From the moment we meet Hazel and her mother, Jane, and the rest of their family it is evident that there is a lot of tension and misunderstanding in their blended familial dynamic. We see how Jane's remarriage to a perfectly fine man named Cam and the birth of a set of twin boys has served to push Hazel and Jane, once a tight-knit family of two, further apart than they have ever been.
There is a lot of honest and raw thoughts and emotions in this story, from the very beginning when we meet Hazel and throughout as the two women work through things to a well-written and sensible conclusion that is satisfyingly tied up for the characters and the people they love.
As a member of a blended family I can say that I am very familiar with how a parent marrying when a child is older, or on the cusp of adulthood, changes dynamics and I applaud Brianna Wolfson for being so earnest and honest in how she approached this type of a story.
It definitely resonated with me; I am still trying to determine in my own heart whether the resonance was one of healing or of old wounds reopening.

Brianna Wolfson's first novel, Rosie Colored Glasses, is about a mother-daughter relationship. Her second novel, That Summer In Maine, tells the stories of two mothers and daughters and the one thing that binds them together.



Hazel is 16 years old, and her mom Jane raised Hazel all on her own. Hazel never knew her father and she and her mom were inseperable, sharing everything, including bowls of ice cream in bed at night.



Now Jane is married, and with her husband Cam has twin baby boys who take up all her time and energy. The relationship Hazel and Jane had has changed, and Hazel feels left out, never more so than when she sees her mother sharing ice cream in bed with Cam instead of her.



Hazel receives a message from a 16 year-old girl named Eve who looks like her and tells her that she thinks they are sisters. Eve tells Hazel that she is going to visit their biological father in Maine and asks Hazel to come with her.



Jane is shocked. She had no idea that Hazel's father Silas had another child, let alone one who was born so close to Hazel. Jane, Cam and Hazel meet with Eve's parents, and after Hazel insists she is going whether Jane approves or not, Jane relents and allows Hazel to go to Maine.



Eve's mother Susie gives Jane a notebook that she wrote to Eve, explaining everything that happened during that summer in Maine when she met Silas and returned home pregnant with Eve. As Jane reads the notebook, she decides to write her own story of how she met Silas that same summer in Maine, became pregnant, and left to have Hazel on her own.



We get to read both woman's notebooks, and follow Eve and Hazel's summer trip to Maine to stay with Silas, their artist father who lives in a cabin on a beautiful lake. Eve has already spent part of last summer with Silas, so she has established a relationship with him. Hazel has some catching up to do, but she enjoys having a sister and a father, something new to her.



Wolfson writes the mother-daughter relationship so well, and she captures the teenage voices of Eve and Hazel so beautifully and realistically. Eve has underlying anger issues, and she vacillates between wanting to be a fun party girl and being angry at her parents and the world. Hazel wants to fill the void left by her changing relationship with her mom, but is uncertain if Silas and Eve can do that.



I liked that the character of Silas is so layered. He's not just some guy who left two women pregnant, he has something in his past that he cannot seem to get over, a deep hurt. I didn't like that he gave teenage girls beer, though. Bad judgement there, Silas.



That Summer in Maine is a novel that will appeal to adult women and teenage young women. I think many young women can relate to the feelings that Eve and Hazel have, as older women will to Jane and Susie's stories.



Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on their Summer Reads 2020 Tour.

That Summer in Maine was a book I really looked forward to reading but I could not get any connection with Hazel but it never happened for me.
The storyline of a daughter trying to connect with her mother to me felt disconnected and no feelings came into play for me with the characters in the story.
It was the type of book I love to read but this one did not leave me with the I will wonder what they are doing feeling after reading the story.
Thank you NetGalley. MIRA and Brianna Wolfson for the ARC. This is my personal honest review.

That Summer in Maine primarily follows Hazel, and her mother Jane, through a journey of self-discovery and realizing the meaning of home and family. Hazel spent her childhood as half of a two-person unit, just her and Jane - but then Jane falls in love, gets married, has twin boys, and suddenly Hazel feels more like a babysitter and less like an important member of the family. One day, a girl reaches out to her via social media, saying she thinks they may be half-siblings. Hazel immediately starts a relationship with her and eventually decides to join her sister on a trip to visit their father in Maine. From there, the story follows Jane as she reminisces on her relationship with Hazel's father, as well as her relationship with Hazel throughout her life. It also follows Hazel during her summer in Maine with her father and half-sister.

I enjoyed this sweet story, which was a different look at family dynamics and finding where you belong. It really made me think about my family and my relationship with my own mother - I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to use a fictional story to take a much more introspective look at their own lives!

Well developed characters In an enjoyable story of two generations striving for love and acceptance.

I really wanted to love this one!!

The last novel that Brianna Wolfson wrote made me bawl my eyes out. So, I went into this one with extremely high expectations. But, unfortunately this one fell a bit flat and didn't have that same spark that her debut novel had.

I do have to say Brianna Wolfson definitely knows how to write! She truly has a way with writing and it's beautiful.

I really loved the different aspects of family this one. You see the struggles between the relationship of a mother and daughter, step siblings, half sister, and lovers. It was nice to see a family aspect and how it truly is beautiful to have a blended family.

Each characters is dealing with their own struggles in the family aspect but at the end you see nicely how each one realizes what makes a family important.

Overall, 3 stars for me!

Thank you to Netgalley and Harlequin/Mira for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Pub date: 6/23/20
Published to GR: 6/14/20

That Summer in Maine: A Novel by Brianna Wolfson releases on June 23, 2020. I read this book in a day while on vacation. I enjoyed the storytelling of this book how the past was told through letters. Two teenage girls find out that they are biologically sisters and spend a few weeks visiting their shared biological dad in Maine. The story shows an honest look at the mother and daughter relationship and what families can look like. Thanks to MIRA via Netgalley for this early review copy.

An unexpectedly deep journey/ reflection into the lives of two women and their past choices, and the ways in which it shaped their futures. The letters written to their daughters are touching and raw- moving and real and heart felt. Eve and Hazel reflected the outcome of decisions made years ago, my heart bleeding for them multiple times throughout the read.

Parts of the story were a little choppy, others a bit too wordy and drawn out. The characters were intricately formed however, and it’s obvious that the author left her soul on the table with this creation.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Harlequin-Trade Publishing US& Canada. This was a different book but one that I enjoyed reading very much.
The book is the journey of 2 mothers who had a brief affair with a man in Maine and they both got pregnant at about the same time even though they didn't know it for a long time. Their journey lets us see the decisions they made and where they went in life. They each tell us their story and then both had girls and we get to see the journey of the girls who as teenagers met on social media. It was interesting when the mothers wrote to their daughter about how they messed up their lives, then to see how their choices affected their daughters but then we saw how much they learned from it.
There was the father that one of his daughters showed up one summer and learned she had a half-sister. She made a connection with her on social media and told her about their father and she went to see him last summer and was going back this year. They both went to see him and that was intriguing because it felt like on the surface all was well but I felt like it was an act. The day finally did come when we found out what was going on.
The author wrote this book with so much feeling that you could feel what they were going through. Through the writing of the mothers, we saw how much they learned from writing what they went through and got a clearer picture of what was really going on. You know how sometimes when you're just living life you don't see a lot of what is really going on but when you tell someone or write it down, you see things differently. I could see that in this story. I liked that the author took us on the journey of the girls and how they really felt and what their mother's decisions did to them. But the journey continues with healing.
I think this book is an eye-opener because so many times we don't think about how our decisions affect someone else. I highly recommend this book and think Brianna Wolfson did an amazing job telling the story of their journey.

I wanted to love this book. It had all the trappings of a book just made for me; Maine, summer, sisters, family drama. I kept reading it even when it began to set my teeth on edge hoping for a turn-about. At the end of the book, I was just irritated. A few take-aways from my experience:

If I never hear the word tummy again I will be a happy woman. Everyone had a tummy. It hurt, or it quaked, or it growled, etc. The thing is, other than the twin one-year-olds, everyone else using the word was mid-teen or older. It gave me a pain. It made my eyes roll.

There was a lot of vague sexual tension and sexualized description of bodies. There was an uncomfortable description on the part of the daughter's of her father's chest hair and muscled thighs. There was a great deal of description of breasts, provocative posturing, and posing. There was descriptive analysis of one sister's body by the other, and the reverse. These characters were all seemingly sexually aware of one another, and yet all related in direct and indirect ways. It was creepy.

There was a subplot running between the two mothers of the teen sisters that could have been a story on its own and yet encompassed the middle third of the book and then was barely referenced again until the last page. Reading it and jumping back into the daughter's perspectives again felt like someone abruptly changed the channel.

And then the obligatory bad girl who manipulates everyone and clearly needs a therapist. She was the only character that was consistent throughout the book. She was tempestuous and selfish from beginning to end, hurting whom she pleased and never receiving consequences.

I received this book as a digital ARC in return for a fair and honest review through NetGalley.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin - Trade Publishing for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

That Summer in Maine by Brianna Wolfson is a novel about the relationships between mothers and daughters, how a mother's choice to build her family impacts her daughter and how teens test boundaries in order to understand it all. This book has multiple points of view from both of the mothers and one of the daughters.

"Years ago, during a certain summer in Maine, two young women, unaware of each other, met a charismatic man at a craft fair and each had a brief affair with him. For Jane it was a chance to bury her recent pain in raw passion and redirect her life. For Susie it was a fling that gave her troubled marriage a way forward.

Now, sixteen years later, the family lives these women have made are suddenly upended when their teenage girls meet as strangers on social media. They concoct a plan to spend the summer in Maine with the man who is their biological father. Their determination puts them on a collision course with their mothers, who must finally meet and acknowledge their shared past and join forces as they risk losing their only daughters to a man they barely know."

Look for this on 6.23.20.

Thanks to Mira/Harlequin and Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for my review.

That Summer in Maine is a novel about family, mother/daughter relationships and growing up. While I liked the idea of the book, it wasn't super memorable and but it was well written. I think my favorite part was when the mothers shared the journal and their feelings about their daughters meeting their father.

Hazel feels displaced after her mother remarries and gives birth to twins. The. She discovers she has a half sister through her father. Hazel meets her sister, Eve, and father Silas at his cabin in Maine. The story switches back and forth between Hazel and her mother Jane and goes back in time. It's not my most favorite rwason format. I didn't care for Eve. I thught Hazel was the most genuine. Silas seemed unapproachable. The cover art is one of the best things about the book.

A story about defining family, love and belonging. Odd but very entertaining. It's a lot ng time since I was a teenager but I was reminded of how that felt.
The feelings of not fitting in and the longing for knowing where you belong.
Told in a very easy manner but holding a depth beyond the surface. I loved it.

What a beautiful novel this turned out to be! The story is told to us by Jane, Hazel's mom, and Hazel herself. Their dynamic is interesting. Hazel is a 16 year old withdrawn teenage girl living her mom, step dad, and newborn twin brothers. She feels abandoned by her mother and Jane has no clue.

One day out of the blue Hazel gets a message with someone who claims to be her half-sister. She invites her to spend the summer in Maine with her and their father, Silas. Jane hesitantly agrees and goes on a journey within herself and realizes she's been losing Hazel slowly.

I loved this story. I loved all the characters (even though I wanted to wring the half sister's neck NUMEROUS times) and loved Silas. I thought there was a LOT of growth with Jane AND Hazel. Jane grew mostly from reading the diary of Susie, the mother of Eve, Hazel's half sister. She took it upon herself to create her own diary filled with letters her daughter would probably never see to explain herself and the decisions she made. Hazel grew after she realized the life she thought she could have with blood relatives wasn't quite what it was cracked up to be.

This book had me feeling the lake breeze while mosquitoes buzzed around in the sweet, sticky heat of the summer. I imagined myself sitting next to the fire while the girls and Silas talked. It was so easy to image the scenery, Wolfson did a remarkable job with that!

4 stars. This is a PERFECT summer read that will have you smiling from ear to ear at the end. Sometimes we all need a happy book and this one delivers just that. You won't be disappointed if you pick this one up to read!

I looked forward to this book from the first day I read a description of it. Unfortunately the book does not live up to the description. The characters are impossible to relate to and it is impossible to have any sympathy for them or their situation. There are far better summer reads out there.