Well well well, hello summer. What an absolute dreamscape. I don't know what more you could want from a book: beach house, surfing, first love, long separation and then reunion. A boy with a guitar who becomes a man with a guitar.

Sure, it gets a bit messy because Sam returns to the beach house with her fiancee. She does not expect her first love Wyatt to be there. She has to forgive him for the way he broke her heart. She has to figure out her own life and what she wants, which is not to be all buttoned up and work a corporate job. She has to learn some bravery, and it takes long swims and days and nights on the beach to help her bring her back to herself. Of course, Wyatt helps too. The way the two of them support each other and understand each other is very well-written. I think Monaghan is the best at showing two people falling in love.

This book felt like a vacation, and who doesn't want to go on vacation?!

Thank you NetGalley for the digital ARC of this book.

Sam & Wyatt were summer neighbors and friends for forever before they fell in love as teens. Their break up broke Sam, so when she returns to the beach where all of their memories are as an engaged and “together” adult she’s not expecting Wyatt’s presence to throw her whole life upside down.

I love Annabel Monaghan’s writing style, and I thought this story was beautifully written. My only qualm is that it changed tense and pov as it switched between Now & Then timelines, and that was a little clunky for me in parts. I imagine the transitions will be smoothed out in the finished version.

I loved Sam and Wyatt reconnecting as adults, and the love triangle element was handled with care and maturity. (Slight spoiler: there is no cheating that happens as a result of the love triangle) Sam realizing that she had made herself small to avoid getting hurt again was a powerful moment. I was completely charmed by Wyatt and his respect for Sam while admitting to having been in love with her his whole life.

Recommended for romance and women’s fiction fans and especially those that love:
-second chance romance
-love triangles
-then & now storytelling
-summer at the beach

Great summer road. Enjoyable story set by the beach. I would recommend for an easy read. Would like to see what happens to certain characters as the future goes on.

Really enjoyed this book. Extremely readable, well written, and balanced. I really enjoyed Nora Goes of Script and found this to be equally compelling. I appreciate the detail to describing the inner voice of Monaghan's characters. They are relatable, real, and likable.

Same Time Next Summer was charming. I absolutely adored this book. It was cute, sweet, fun and I couldn’t put it down. Wyatt and Sam were well built characters and this book was a delight!

This is definitely going to be a popular summer read! I really enjoyed Sam and Wyatt’s evolving relationship and that we got to experience it from childhood into adulthood and from multiple POV at times. I would’ve appreciated a bit more digging into the supporting characters or a bit more time with the main characters after they got together. overall it’s a 4 star, entertaining, and quick read. I will absolutely read whatever this author writes next!


Thank you to NetGalley and penguin for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Overall, I liked <i>Same Time Next Summer</i> and think it will be a huge hit for the summer as a beach read. It reminds me a lot of Emily Henry's and Carley Fortune's books--it's light enough to be an easy beach read but still engaging enough to not be pure fluff.

Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

I LOVE second chance romance books. Add in a beach setting and I'm sold. Same Time Next Summer checks off both of those boxes, but something was missing from this one for me. I loved Every Summer After by Carley Fortune and The Infinity Between Us by N.S. Perkins. I'm not sure if I just wasn't sold on the relationship between Sam and Wyatt or that it just followed the trope to the letter without anything new or different, but it fell a bit short.

Perhaps it was the fact that Sam and Wyatt haven't been in contact in over a decade... but she never searched for him? She never saw his name come across her social media? That definitely took away from the story a bit. Also, I don't think we saw enough of Sam and Jack's relationship. Sure, we heard about the clean lines everywhere, but what about the deeper stuff?

I love the setting of the beach and I do like how this flowed. The changing from first person to third person bothered me a bit, but didn't detract from the story. I think I just wanted more out of the relationships.

This book is the perfect happily-ever-after beach read! As Sam spends extra time with her family, we see her perspective change about who she is and what she wants out of life / relationships / work. I especially loved her relationship with her little sister.

My one hang up with this story is that I don’t really believe a 17 year old is capable of such a mature relationship that they’d remain devastated by a breakup 14 years later. But that’s part of what makes up the tension and drives the storyline, so ya gotta just go with it.

Special thanks to NetGalley and publisher G.P. Putnam’s Sons for the opportunity to read and review the book prior to publication.

This is the best book I have read all year! I read it in less than a day because I was hooked from the first chapter on. I loved the journey Sam went on, from living her safest life to taking risks and remembering who she truly is. This will be THE book of the summer.

After having loved Monaghan’s first book I was so excited to read this one. It did not disappoint! Such a cute story, especially for anyone who loves the beach and shared memories of childhood from the ocean. The end is exactly what I hoped for- perfectly wrapped up in a beautiful love story.

A slow burn of a read that leaves you pulling for all of the characters. Loved the setting and the timeline of this novel.

From the time she was five years old, Sam’s family spent the summer at their beach house on Long Island. They were idyllic summers filled with swimming in the ocean, picnics on the beach, playing capture the flag, collecting seashells, riding bicycles into town to get ice cream, and a myriad of other summer activities. Wyatt was the boy next door. Inseparable as children, as teenagers they fell in love. Life was blissful. Until that summer that Sam was 17…. the summer her life blew up and she was never the same. Over the next 14 summers, she would visit her parents at the beach for a couple days, but she never spent the whole summer at the beach again and she never saw Wyatt again. Over the years, she underwent therapy, went to college, found herself a well-paying job, and built a new life for herself. It was a life that was predictable, safe, and had none of the impulsiveness of her childhood.

Fourteen years later, she brings her fiancé, Jack, to her parents’ beach house for the first time. She is apprehensive. Her parents are more free-spirited at the beach than when they are in the city. How will Jack react? She assures herself that it will be fine. They will be there only 3 days and will check out a wedding venue. Part of her is excited to share her love of the ocean and the beach with Jack. Soon after they arrive, she realizes that her family kept something from her. Wyatt is staying at his parents’ beach house for the summer.

This is not just a story of a past love. It is the story of a young woman rediscovering the person she once was. Told from the perspective of both Sam and Wyatt, the narrative moves back and forth between then and now. We learn Sam and Wyatt’s history. We learn what happened that “horrible” summer. And we learn how devastating one single secret can be and how it can affect lives for years.

This was an enjoyable read. I expected a light romance, but it was much more than that. The characters were well-developed. The author captured life at the beach. I felt like I was there. I became enthralled with the story and it stayed with me long after I finished the book.

I highly recommend this novel. This is the first novel that I have read by Annabel Monaghan and it won’t be the last! I plan to pick up her novel, Nora Goes Off Script, and I look forward to future novels that she may write.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publisher for providing me with an advanced review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Smart, funny, entertaining, fresh. I loved the one— it reminded me of being sixteen and in love. The characters, scenery, and intensity of love are so evocatively written and sweet. This was so refreshing to read and actually felt like real life? One of the best romcoms I’ve read in awhile!

I really enjoyed Sam and Wyatt's story. I haven't read the other books by this author, but with how well done this story was I think I'll be reaching for it! Certainly gave me the summer vibes I was missing!

Thanks NetGalley and Penguin Group for this ARC! I was excited to get this book after finishing Nora Goes Off Script by the same author, which I loved! Unfortunately, this book couldn't stand up to Nora. It felt too long for a predictable ending (which is to be expected but could have wrapped up much sooner). My biggest issue is that I wasn't rooting for anyone in this book, of course you want the expected outcome but we are meant to forget about all the issues leading up to it which I couldn't do. That said, the final wrap up of the book did put a smile on my face (although we don't really know those characters at all) and brough this up at least half a star for me.

Overall, I enjoyed Nora Goes Off Script so much that I will try Annabel Monaghan again when she releases another book but this one wasn't for me.

Great book the perfect beach read. An exploration of true love and who we are - and aren’t- while in it.

This reminded me of a grown up Sarah Dessen book, but in the best way possible.

I can just tell that I will want to reread by the pool/at the beach all summer long.

The second chance romance, banter, and setting were so perfect.

This book was everything a beach read should be. I fell right into it on the first page and didn’t want to stop reading it until the last. Just the bit of summer I’ve been needing.

Fans of Elin Hilderbrand’s Nantucket novels should definitely pick this up. The setting here is just as vivid — I could feel the damp sea air and sand reading this. Romantic and atmospheric and sweet and all-around wonderful.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy! I’ll be recommending this to all my friends when it comes out.

Thank you to NetGalley and the published for this advanced copy. 3.5 stars

This was one of my most highly anticipated books to be released this year. Nora Goes Off Script ruined me, in the best way. I started out really enjoying this, but as it progressed, I liked it slightly less.

I do love AM's writing. I enjoy flawed characters where the past incidences that made them that way are explained thoroughly. Sam's parents and siblings were just wonderful people. I could've read a general fiction about her family and been so happy to do so. Sam's dad made a huge mistake in the past, but he seemed so genuinely remorseful and loving. The scenes were picturesque and I found myself thinking quite often that I should convince my husband to buy a summer house. So my takeaway is that I liked every part of the book that didn't have to deal with Sam's love life.

It was confusing that the present was in first person and the past was in third person. I really wish AM would have chose one and kept it consistent the entire time. Dr. Judy was the most unlikeable in this book. She seemed so unprofessional and definitely misdiagnosed Sam, who was showing OCD tendencies but told her it was addiction. I know that writing about mental health stuff can be complicated, but I wish this part was more researched because I cannot see any good therapist saying the things that Dr. Judy did. I felt like Jack was written in a way to make him extremely unlikeable from the beginning. It made me as a reader wonder why the hell Sam was ever with him in the first place, and made it hard to understand their relationship. Wyatt wasn't as dreamy as I'd hope for a MMC, he came across selfish and flippant, quite often. In the end, I had no real connection to either of Sam's relationships and was kind of just rooting for her by herself.

I think plenty of others would enjoy this story though, as my few dislikes were specific to my own tastes. I'd definitely pick up any future books AM writes.