I loved the setting and dual timeline aspect of this book. Katie Bishop had an intriguing writing style that I enjoyed and found easy to read.
Please look up TWs for this book. It ended up being waaayyy darker than I expected and therefore won’t be a go to recommendation for me.

Thank you St. Martins Press for the advanced copy!

Thank you for the ARC of this book! While it was a fast paced read and I feel like at one point or another we all wonder about the one who got away, the what ifs that come with it. This fell a little short for me. It was well written and intriguing but a 17 year old traveling overseas alone seems a bit terrifying and it was hard to relate to as a 33 yo old woman who’s parents were pretty strict and never would’ve allowed this.
⭐️⭐️⭐️

We follow Rachel as she visits a Greek Island where she used to line as a teenager. Rachel begins to reminisce about her time in the island when she was seventeen and the person whom she was in love with Alistair.

**check content warnings**

This book is very atmospheric and a slow burn. The writing style is easy to consume, however, every time I put this book down, I was not drawn to pick it up and continue. Maybe it was the age gap romance? Maybe the dual timelines? Maybe the lack of maturity in Rachel?

I will definitely check out Katie Bishop and her future works!

The Girls of Summer is not your typical summer read. It is dark, drug addled, and full of manipulation. We are transported to the past with Rachel's remembrances of her summer in Greece. There, she meets an older, sophisticated man from London. She allows herself to fall under his spell and eventually is betrayed. In the present, she and her husband travel to the same Greek island where that "infamous" summer occurred, and she relives that moment in time and struggles with determining if she lost a love or was bamboozled.

Warning: this story is very heavy, so not the beach read most may be looking for. Themes of abuse and sex trafficking are in the forefront.

While this may not have been my cup of tea, it is well written. It shows a side many of us are not familiar with: that dark, seedy life of powerful and manipulative men and how easy it is for women to fall prey to them. It is a tragic and cautionary tale for us all.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC. The opinions expressed are my own.

I’m not sure what I expected going into this book, but it wasn’t what I got! The cover makes it look like a book of summer fun - and it’s definitely not that. I’m impressed that this is a debut women’s fiction novel because it did not read as such. Told in dual timelines, The Girls of Summer follows Rachel both through her summer in Greece at age 17 and when she and her husband return to the same island for vacation many years later. Atmospherically, I was whisked away for a summer in the Greek isles. While reading, I was unfortunately unsurprised by the situations that came up in the book regarding older men taking advantage of young women.
I've seen this compared to My Dark Vanessa - it’s been a while since I read that, but I can see that likeness in terms of their dark sexual themes. This book, on the other hand, left me feeling a bit differently about the main character, as I couldn’t stand her!
I mostly listened to the audiobook, which was excellently narrated by Annabel Scholey. Her narration made the story come to life, especially in the beginning when it was setting the stage for the trauma to come. I found myself following along with the ebook in order to pay attention, which I don’t usually do.
Thanks to the St Martin's Press for the ARC and Macmillan Audio for the ALC via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion. I crushed this on my train home from a busy long weekend in New Jersey - I recommend the audiobook but be aware that this is a darker and heavier story than the cover portrays. It is available today!

Content Warnings: sexual abuse, drug abuse, lack of consent, human trafficking, grooming, abortion

This book was not for me. I felt it was very dark and not the light beach read I was looking for at the time. If this is what you're looking for, this book is for you.

This book will appeal to readers who like slow paced, darker style book. The plot centers around a young woman who is betrayed by an older man.

Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin's Press for the advance reader's copy. My review is my own.

4.5 stars rounded up

The Girls of Summer, by Katie Bishop, is a fascinating story about a young woman whose adult life is shaped by, and shadowed by, her summer on a remote Greek island at age 17.
Told in two timelines, Then and Now, the central character Rachel is backpacking in Greece with her friend Caroline. When she falls for a suave, older man from London who works for an uber-wealthy entrepreneur, she finds herself being drawn into their world of excess—alcohol, drugs and sex. Sixteen years later, Rachel is married to solid Tom, who “feels like safety and suffocation, all at once,” to her. When they take a vacation to that very Greek island, it of course triggers all sorts of memories and deep feelings in Rachel, as she recalls her wild summer there.
Rachel is the protagonist and the story unspools from her POV as the ghosts of her past emerge and impact her present calm but uninspired life. As a character, I found Rachel unlikeable but well-written in that she did some foolish things and was fooled by people whose activities and their words sometimes concealed the worst intentions.
I think that this is a good characterization of an unsophisticated girl whose lack of self-worth left her open to social predators. The other characters in the story seemed two dimensional, but their roles were very secondary to Rachel’s tale.
Ultimately I found this novel very moving, and I think it hits the mark as a searing, and very personal, tale about a young woman who is exploited by deviant, powerful men.
The writing is strong and skillful at evoking the languid feeling of this bucolic island.
I highly recommend this great debut novel to readers who enjoy meaningful suspense.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC. This is my honest review.

At first, I thought I didn't like this book, but I realized any book that could elicit such strong emotions was a winner. This was definitely a tough read. The MC Rachel was hard to connect with. She "dated" this older man years ago and fell hard for him. So hard that she can't forget him 15 years later. I don't want to give anything away, so I won't say too much. I understood Rachel's behavior when she was younger, but she frustrated me so much in the present day. Please read the content warnings before diving into this book. This was difficult but such a timely read and important to understand how these types of situations could happen.

🌅 𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗪 🌅

Thank you #partner @stmartinspress for the gifted copy!

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗶𝗿𝗹𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿
𝗕𝘆 𝗞𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗲 𝗕𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽
𝗣𝘂𝗯: 𝟲/𝟲/𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯

📖 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁: When Rachel was 17, she went to Greece with a friend on a summer holiday. There she meets the enigmatic Alistair, a man twenty years her senior, and has a summer love affair that shapes her future.

Fifteen years later, Rachel is married to a charming man named Tom. From the outside, they're picture perfect! But Rachel has never been able to love Tom the way she loves Alistair. Because while she hasn't seen him since that long ago summer, she's carried on this deep obsession for nearly half her life.

Unable to let go of the events of that summer, Rachel reconnects with her past and is forced to examine her interpretation of the things that happened in Greece. Is Alastair really her one true love? Or is she a victim whose life was tragically altered by a sick man?

💭 𝗧𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀: This ambitious debut novel is very heavy, and very original! It's a thought-provoking, genre-bending, character-driven novel with layers upon layers that are slowly peeled back throughout the story. We have a single perspective here, with a dual-timeline in past and present.

The author does an excellent job taking such a sensitive topic - the exploitation of a naive teenager - and exploring the long-term impact it has on her life. It is described as a "post me-too" novel, and I think that's fitting.

⚠️ Please check TWs

𝑶𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒐𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒘!

*Review posted to my Instagram today 6/5

I went into this one not sure what to expect, but anticipated a bit more of a scenic mystery in the beautiful Greek islands. What it ended up being was more of a dark, cultish, atmospheric mystery. It was a good story overall, but didn’t quite WOW me at all.

What I do enjoy in a mystery are secrets from the past and feeling the story unfold piece by piece. Rachel was clearly hiding something that was begging to be brought to light and I was quite curious what it would be, and how it could be so bad that she never looked back.

There was quite a bit of setup to really get to the point and for me to recognize where the story was going. The back and forth between timelines to introduce the characters and storyline was a bit slow in the beginning. Once it got to the point it was interesting, but not until the very end did it really hold my attention. Even then I felt like I was waiting for more to happen and found it a bit predictable.

Thank you to St. Martins Press and NetGalley for my gifted copy. Full review on my IG on pub day.

**Many thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Katie Bishop for an ARC of this book!**

Although the title of this book might get you humming Don Henley's The Boys of Summer and itching for a poolside cocktail...the contents of this slow burn and heavily atmospheric #MeToo inspired tale reminded me more of the bland and grey monotony of winter than the bright excitement of summer.

What if your perfect summer vacation never had to end?

Rachel heads to Greece with her friend Caroline at age 17...and is swept away by the romantic scenery and idyllic feel of the beautiful island they inhabit. On top of that, the teens get invited to some glamorous and exciting parties and the requisite drinks and drugs are par for the course. One night while at the bar, a striking older man walks up next to Rachel and the two lock eyes and exchange a few words...and within minutes, Rachel feels in her bones that she has found true love.

But Alistair is 20 years her senior...and works for a wealthy and powerful boss, Henry Taylor. Rachel vows to stay on the island and finds a way...but things in her relationship continue to become more intense and dramatic and she also has to keep things between her and Alistair secret. As Rachel continues to engage in risky behavior, several other girls are also swept up in their own late nights and keeping their own secrets...and one fateful and tragic night ends up binding them forever.

Many years later, Rachel is married to kind and sensible Tom and on a trip back to the same island...and the combination of their strained marriage and her feelings for the man she can't let go have Rachel reeling. But when a group of her old gal pals runs into her and deliver some news about Alistair, everything she thought she knew about the 'soulmate' that got away is about to change. Is now the time to pursue love and cut her husband loose? Or will Rachel have the courage and the strength to trust her old friends and acknowledge that her teenage infatuation was simply puppy love...with a man who WASN'T the Romeo she has longed to love for so long?

This is one of those books that is almost instantly misleading: the cover implies a zippy, sun-soaked thriller set in a beautiful locale...and only one of those three things is true. At first, I had a lot of hope for this read: Bishop's writing is certainly atmospheric, and the contrast between Rachel's silent misery with Tom in her current situation based against the glamorized look back at her whirlwind romance of sorts with Alistair was rife with potential for drama, and DEEP drama.

But when I realized that 17 year old Rachel and present day Rachel had basically the same level of maturity and common sense...I came to realize that personal growth wasn't going to be the cornerstone of this story...and for that matter, really wasn't present AT ALL.

Rachel's dewy eyed ignorance makes sense when she's seventeen (to an extent)...but as a grown woman, it's a bit far fetched that she would be SO oblivious to EVERYTHING that transpired that fateful summer. Not to mention her treatment of her poor husband Tom, who basically gets strung along for no apparent reason (still not even sure why she married him in the first place). There isn't really a lot to like about Rachel, and because she doesn't learn a thing even when the truth is being shouted in her face, it's hard to feel sorry for her.

There's also the fact that this prose is on the weighty side: not necessarily bad, but don't expect to blast through this one in a couple of hours. It works in the sense of atmosphere for the first 50% of the book or so, but once the plot jumped the shark, the writing quality also dipped and didn't recover. You also have to wait until about 70% or so for the 'thriller' part of the plot to transpire, so if you don't have the patience, I would quit while you're ahead.

And for the record, Rachel honestly might have done better if, in the end, she'd listened to the lyrics from Henley's song herself:

"I thought I knew what love was, what did I know?
Those days are gone forever
I should just let them go"

...I couldn't have said it better myself.

3.5 stars

Super dark. I actually haven’t read My Dark Vanessa but seeing it be compared to this one a lot. It’s a tale as old as time - young, impressionable barely-18 year old is enamored with a man twice her age and can’t see past her infatuation to realize she’s being totally taken advantage of.

The beachy setting in Greece might have you thinking it’s a light summer read but this one will leave you feeling heavy when you finish it. I really enjoyed it though!!

In The Girls of Summer, Rachel’s entire life has been centered around what happened during a formative teenage summer that she spent on a tiny island in Greece. Her love for Alistair has never left, despite being married to another man. The secrets that were kept that summer have marked the lives of all the girls that Rachel knew, and not in good ways. When Rachel reconnects with one of the girls from that summer, it triggers everything she lost and Rachel goes down a path she can’t come back from.

The story itself was interesting but I just feel like it took a long time to develop. I didn’t find any of the characters especially likeable and so I felt it was easy to put this story down and do or read other things.

Another story that really got me sucked in the whole way through! A great read with character that are so full of depth. Definitely a must read, especially with the way Katie Bishop wrote this novel.

The Girls of Summer was one of my anticipated reads for the month of June, and it did not disappoint.

I was looking forward to spending a few hundred pages on a literary vacation to a sunny Greek island, but this book was so much more than just a girls’ trip for some summer fun. Alternating between Now and Then, the reader gets a chance to not only see what transpired on the island while Rachel was seventeen, but also what her life had become in her thirties, including her memories of that youthful time on the island.

This book hooked me immediately. The back and forth of the chapters between the past and present really propelled this book forward. I could visualize this group of girls working and partying on this beautiful Greek Island, soaking up the sun and living it up. It sounds perfect, doesn’t it? Oh, but this novel delivered an intense, relevant reading experience.

Rachel has always had mostly fond memories of her time in Greece. She met a group of friends, came into her own, and fell in love with an older man. Alastair seemed to be the love of her life, but when we see Rachel years later, married to Tom and trying for a child, and still thinking of Alastair, you can’t help but wonder what had happened to their relationship.

It was interesting to see how memories from our youth can be romanticized and embellished. How we may not want to see the events the way others may have interpreted them. We don’t want to feel duped by how we felt or feel victimized over something that had meant so much to us at the time.

Whenever I read a novel, I always want to like the characters in the book. It doesn’t always happen, and in certain books, I just don’t expect to. So, did I like Rachel? Yes, I did. Did she make bad decisions? Absolutely! I couldn’t help but feel for the young girl who was blinded by her attraction to a man who showed her attention. Years later, she was forced to listen to her friends’ versions of what they remembered from that summer, and she had to come to terms with the fact that everything may not have been exactly as she remembered.

The Girls of Summer was a fast-paced, timely, relevant read that kept me glued to the pages. It made me feel a gamut of emotions, and I found myself still thinking about it days after I finished it.

*5 Stars

When Rachel and Caroline are 17 they spend the summer traveling before they have to return home to start school. Their last stop is on a Greek island. Rachel falls in love with the island and Alistair, a much older man. Rachel decides to take a gap year and stay on the island while Caroline returns home. Rachel has never had much attention from men before and so the fact that Alistair is paying attention to her brings out feelings Rachel has never had before.

It's hard to say too much without giving away spoilers about the book. There are two timelines, Rachel from 15 years ago on the island and Rachel now. Rachel now is married and getting ready to start a family. However Rachel has problems dealing with her feelings from 15 years ago, although maybe she isn't dealing with the right feelings.

I wasn't crazy about the way the two timelines went back and forth. Sometimes in the current timeline things were exposed that hadn't actually happened yet in the earlier timeline. To me this gave away parts of the story earlier than I would have liked.

The Girls of Summer discusses some difficult subjects that not everyone will want to read. However, the author does a good job of describing Rachel at an earlier age and how she allowed this to happen.

I received an ARC of The Girls of Summer in exchange for an honest review.

A harrowing story about sex and labor trafficking. Although this story was not my favorite, I really appreciated the way the author showed how easy it can be to be trafficked. We often think of the movie “taken”, whereas trafficking can be much more simple and a much more gradual entry until the victims find they can’t escape. It is educational and an important story to read and share.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's PRess, and Katie Bishop for the advanced copy of The Girls of Summer in exchange for my honest review.

I have unfortunately decided to DNF this one approximately 20% in. I'm really not connecting with our female MC and the storyline isn't pulling me in.

I will not be rating or reviewing this book on any retail site aside from NetGalley as I don't believe it's fair to do when I have not finished the book!

The Girls of Summer by Katie Bishop is a captivating and emotional novel that will leave readers spellbound. With its lyrical prose and realistic descriptions of the island, the book is reminiscent of HBO's hit series, "The White Lotus." Fans of psychological suspense will be drawn to the plot-driven tension, making it a perfect read-alike for "My Dark Vanessa."

Bishop's writing style is both engaging and professional, making it easy for readers to immerse themselves in the story. The novel's characters are well-developed, and their emotions are palpable, making it a truly immersive experience.

Overall, The Girls of Summer is a must-read for anyone who loves a good psychological thriller. With its captivating plot, well-developed characters, and beautiful writing, it is sure to leave a lasting impression on readers.