https://lainahastoomuchsparetime.wordpress.com/2022/03/21/adult-thriller-review-the-summer-we-buried/

Unfortunately I found this book really underwhelming. It’s not a particularly thrilling thriller. I think this is supposed to be really psychologically twisty and dark, but I kind of just found the relationship between Tansy and Selene annoying. You hear a lot about how manipulative Selene is and how obsessed, basically, she and Tansy were with each other, but that’s not shown much.

Also I thought the romance was kind of out of place. It felt like the book suddenly took a couple chapters out of a romantic suspense – it didn’t fit at all. Especially the random explicit sex scene, which was not expected at all. It really didn’t serve the plot, and it was just kind of weird.

I’m gonna talk about the ending now, skip if you want. It really bothered me that none of the characters face like any consequences. Especially Tansy, who gets everything she wants and the only thing she has to deal with is some mild guilt which doesn’t actually seem to bother her much. She also doesn’t really DO anything by her own motivation in the book, it’s all her doing stuff someone else tells her to do.

I was just very meh on this. It was just really bland and not that interesting.

Representation: Tansy’s brother is gay.

Content notes: Lots of talk about rape and domestic abuse, including a fairly graphic attempted rape scene. Also, miscarriage is talked about a lot at the beginning of the book, and there’s an explicit sex scene. CW for suicide as well.

There are slow burns, then there are drags. This one drags. Tansy and Selene are old friends who had a summer of mischief 20 years prior. Selene resurfaces with a favor to ask Tansy. I thought this was a thriller, but it reads more like a drama. No big surprises here. Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this ARC. 3 Stars

There was a summer where Tansy was drawn in by the brightness and energy and sharp-edged determination of one of her fellow summer workers at a spa, Selene. A woman with a million stories of the life she used to live, fantastic and fascinating and intoxicating. But even the greatest of summers end and this one ended with a murder that Selene convinced her they needed to cover up, and the guilt drove her as far away as she could get. Twenty years later, Selene has returned to demand Tansy help her look into her daughter relationship, insisting that Jupiter’s boyfriend is abusive and that Tansy owes her and digging into her life both to make sure she does as asked and, possibly, in a desperate bid to mend a friendship lost. Can Tansy work around her former friend’s demands and keep her professional integrity? Does she want to?
Jody Gehrman’s The Summer We Buried just doesn't work for me on any level. It was marketed as a thriller but then mostly dealt with the protagonist's personal trauma and drama as her literally crazy former best friend comes back into her life nearly twenty years later to demand she help break up Selene's daughter's relationship or else. And also Selene’s younger brother is hot and that will take up so much page space.

The antagonist really seems to be Selene and her personality disorder more than the daughter's abusive boyfriend or the situation Tansy has found herself in in her life. Selene marches in and makes demands, holding the events of a summer long ago over protagonist's head as a threat, trying to make Tansy do her bidding despite her professional duties to her patients. She goes to Tansy's house with no warning or indication that she should know where Tansy lives to push her to do the thing. She's clearly a character who needs serious help, but then Tansy just goes along with it, telling herself that if she does a little of what Selene wants then she can dig her feet in later and not go all the way. She even convinces Selene's younger brother the professor/government agent/ person who lived with this shit for years of this path. It's frustrating and sad rather than thrilling.

And the romance with the younger brother isn't any better. It feels too fast, too included because the author needed to fill page space, too much like the ending had been set already and it needed to be there for that ending to work. It does not even feel like it has a solid foundation, Tansy never really explains what Selene has on her because 'a man just couldn't understand' and goes on to keep hiding more and more from him as the plot continues. It's the kind of thing that leaves me feeling like the ending should have been the half way point of the story, with the next half dedicated to the whole house of cards falling in around everyone's heads.

That ending is a fair chunk of my frustration too. With Selene's mental health issues being such a major part of what ties everything together and drags the various characters into place, the ending is simultaneously the only way the book could have ended and also feels totally unearned. The pathos for Selene could have been there, should have been there, but a late story character revelation tears a good chunk of it away. I know nothing about borderline personality disorder or how it effects people who have it, Selene could easily be an accurate bad case scenario for it and I would not know, but it feels like a depiction of refusing to deal with their mental illness and forcing someone else to fix the problem they caused. Selene is gone and Tansy is left holding everything together for her and cleaning up the mess. And I hate it.

Which really is the problem here, The Summer We Buried could be the most sensitive portrayal of someone dealing with a friend having bpd in recent writing, but it just does not work for me personally. It feels overly dramatized, very made for TV movie, in its plot and character work. I would probably be kinder to it without the suddenly aggressively hetero romance and the weird gender essentialist reason for bad communication, but I cannot know how much kinder I would be.

Which is a real shame because there are several moments where the author will find space for a lush description of a landscape or will pull Tansy away from the Selene drama and let her interact with a different set of characters, allowing for moments of warmth and camaraderie that feel so much more real and solid than any of the rest of the book. It is clear that Gherman has skill as an author, but I do not know that she is an author for me. I give The Summer We Buried a two out of five. I think I would try Gherman’s writing again, but in a different genre.

I struggled to get into this one. Super low burn thriller. I tend to like my thrillers to take off from the start.

This was a solid read. Exploring the lives, problems, and struggles of characters all at different stages in their lives. Dove into some sensitive issues as well. Very interesting and great writing!

TW / Sexual assault.

TW / Domestic violence.


A very intriguing slow burn book that will have you addicted and needing to keep turning the pages late into the night…

From the get go I found The Summer We Buried to be an intriguing and atmospheric read, it had that addictive feel to it and worked it’s way under my skin, to the point where I needed to keep reading to find out what would happen to our characters. Coupled with an incredibly well done underlying tense feeling, it was the perfect recipe for a thrilling book.

For me, the characters really made this story what it was. They all had their own past and things to keep hidden, that gave them a real air of mystery… Coupled with the very real and natural relationships they were forming throughout the story, Tansy’s two minds about the past, Selene’s need to keep her daughter safe, Jupiter’s situation and Zack who seemingly gets caught in the middle of everything (until as we find out later, isn’t exactly as it seems).

Individually the characters were excellently written and together they formed a mismatched group that just worked. That carried the story to its completion and did a thoroughly good job of it too.

The writing also really impressed me, and while it was a slow burn book it didn’t feel boring. The author had this very descriptive, almost poetic way of writing, that was beautiful and really brought the book to life.

And the plot was good too, there were a few twists that I picked up on that weren’t brilliantly concealed, but on the whole the story was really good! The twists and turns weren’t outlandish and they all just worked really well together to form a truly good story.

While entertaining isn’t the best word to describe this book, I would definitely recommend it if you’re looking for a slow burn that will still give you a thrill…

I really wanted to love this one, but it was too slow of a start for me. The characters weren’t relatable to me, and I was hoping for a better beginning that really sucked me in, but didn’t find that here. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy.

Tansy is a college advisor living in her perfect world. Out of nowhere her friend Selene shows up and is wanting Tansy to help her get in touch with her daughter.
This book was a little slow and I felt like some of it may have been cut out. Especially the part about the home Tansy lives in.
This is an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher is Crooked Lane.

This book ended up not being as much of a thriller as I was expecting. The secret between the two women wasn't completely terrible that Tansy could have told the truth so in part she chose to be manipulated by Selene. I really enjoyed the relationship between the two characters and how it is constantly changing. I was surprised by the ending, I didn't see it going that way so I'm happy with that. Overall it was a good character driven story but not many twists or action to add more. I liked the read overall.

A great slow burn read. Not so much as a thriller, but more of a mystery read.
About half way through the book the pacing picked up and the ending tied together nicely.
I will say that none of the characters were very likable, and that kind of put me off a bit.
Overall, this was a fun mystery read.

A slow-burn psychological suspense/mystery, versus the thriller that I had been anticipating. Secrets from the past surface, lives and jobs are in jeopardy, and relationships still develop, in the midst of the chaos.

I found the start of this book slow, and almost gave up. The second half definitely picks up, and then the details and twists came flying at a rapid rate. I didn't feel a connection with any of the clients, which I felt took away from my enjoyment of the story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

let down.
The pacing of this book was incredibly uneven. It caused me, as a
reader, to be extremely bored for the first half of this book. By the
time I got to the second half and things started to ramp up I was
already pretty much done with this book. I had pretty much lost
interest in this tale of toxic friendships and not-quite-plausible
secrets and lies.
The story may be entertaining enough to another reader for a better
review, but I just couldn't get totally on board.

‘The summer we buried’ really grabbed me from the beginning. I personally didn’t mind the dysfunctional characters and the odd dynamic between them from the start; for me it added to the power play between Tansy and Selene and the strange dependency they allude to about a shared secret.
I loved how Gerhman paced this novel because although I’ve read a lot of psychological thrillers this one felt fresh and interesting. Twenty years ago, Tansy was drawn into Selene’s toxic friendship leading to an awful incident that would haunt Tansy for the following two decades. Selene returns and massively disrupts Tansy’s life by asking for her help with her teenage daughter, Jupiter and her abusive boyfriend. I really enjoyed the pacing of this thriller with its layers of false truths and dramatic twists.
The story does have uncomfortable moments, but the way the coercive and manipulative relationship is depicted is so well done. I raced through this book and although it begins with a bit of a slow burn but was such a worthy payoff by the conclusion.

This was a good quick read. I liked the story line. I do feel it was a little drug out but over all I enjoyed this one and would recommend it to other

If you know me, you know I'm a sucker for a good "back in the day" cover-up story that comes back to the surface in the present. That said, this book does a great job showing what happens when you think you buried something in the past, but it doesn't stay buried,

I love the idea of best friends who are polar opposites, and that's what you get in Tansy and Selene. Tansy is the more settled of the best friends - she mostly plays it safe and lives a relatively normal life, trying to keep the past behind her while figure out her next move into her future. And Selene is the most destructive of the two, seemingly never settling down, always toeing the line between what's right and what's wrong.

In the past, Selene helps to save Tansy from a dangerous situation, but that situation ends up creating a secret that ties the two together forever. That secret pulls them apart, and for a long time, they have no connection.

In the present, Selene comes back into Tansy's world, asking for help in a situation with her daughter Jupiter. When Tansy tries to say no, Selene reminds her that they have a secret that could bring both of them down.

I really enjoyed this book. The characters are well written and the stories are well thought out. Selene is crazy enough to keep you guessing, while you root for Tansy and want her to get out of the stressful situation that she's found herself in.

The question is: will Tansy do the right thing? Or will her secret with Selene bring both of them tumbling down?

Tansy, a college counselor, is visited one day by Selene, an unstable acquaintance from her distant past with whom she shares a dark secret, in this slow-burning tale. Selene begs Tansy to assist her in ending the relationship between Selene’s 18-year-old daughter Jupiter and her boyfriend, whom she claims is manipulating and isolating her daughter. Tansy agrees to befriend Jupiter, but solely to create a secure area for Jupiter to converse, because she is afraid of Selene disclosing their secret to the world.

The character analysis and growth were excellent. In the first half of the novel, there isn’t much going on. We meet both characters and learn about their haunting pasts, including a horrific occurrence that occurred 20 years ago during a harvest full moon celebration and its ramifications. It revolves around a toxic friendship between two old friends and a problematic mother-daughter relationship. The author writes about complicated personalities and tense subjects. Domestic, abusive, and poisonous relationships, bullying, obsession, companionship, and parenthood are among topics that come up in discussions about mental health. Fans of domestic suspense will like this book.

A mother-daughter bond, friendship, and secrets are all explored in this novel. In this tale, there are a lot of mysteries that emerge from the shadows. This tale is full of interesting twists and unpunished falsehoods, and it’s definitely worth the read. There are many coercive, torturous relationships that society tries to normalize, and a genuine depiction of how some people may be blind to the unseen bonds. I’d never read anything by this author before, but I appreciated the character growth and plot development. Although the finale was pleasant, I found it to be a bit too slow-burning for me, with scenes and features that seemed unrelated to the story.

The Summer we Buried is a story about friendship, love, difficult relationships, stranged families, mental health issues, and deceit. A secret from the past taints Tansy's life and her conflicts become even worse when Selene reappears demanding that she makes contact with her daughter, Jupiter, as a school counselor. And after that, Zach, a teacher in the same school and Selena's brother, approaches Tansy and asks her not to comply with that request. That's the start of a very well-woven plot, that puts everyone against everyone depending on the circumstance/moment, the past becomes alive in the present, and even more unexpected facts resurface. This story also raises concerns regarding the lack of medication when a mental health problem exists and the patient does not acknowledge it. This is the first book that I read by Jody Gehrman and I really enjoyed her writing style and will be looking for other books by this writer in the future.

An intriguing slow burn.

The last time Tansy saw her former BFF, Selene, was twenty years ago. They were complete opposites: Tansy was 10 years younger and naive. Selene was brassy, bold, and - quite frankly - a b...well, I’m sure you can assume! Tansy couldn’t handle having her in her life after Selene made her an accessory to a terrible crime.

What will happen next? I was pretty fascinated to find out!

So this book has not been getting the best reviews but that didn't stop me from reading it. It does have a slow start and is kind of slow through out the book, but I found it interesting enough that it did not end up in my DNF list. It is a good psychological thriller and one where I did not figure out the ending, so for me that is a thumbs up!
i enjoyed all the various characters in the story and then how it all came together at the end. If you are looking to see what this book is about, I rarely will put that description in because I don't like giving spoilers. It is a thriller about to unlikely friends, their past and what happens when they meet up again after 20 years.
Thank you to #netgalley for granting me an ARC to give an honest review.

Tansy and Selene were best friends in high school but when a tragic event caused Tansy to distance herself from Selene - they didn't talk for twenty years. There's a secret being hidden and now with Selene back...it's about to come out. Everything revolves around Selene, her daughter Jupiter, her daughter's abusive boyfriend Colton, her brother, and her best friend Tansy.

This story makes dysfunctional families look normal to tell you the truth. I have enough dysfunction that I don't really want to read about it. It wasn't a bad book, it just didn't keep my attention.