⭐⭐1/2

Summer Ever After is a lovely escapist romance that is unfortunately sullied by some questionable rep, a couple frustrating characters, and a few tropes that are just personally not my cup of tea. Still, the storyline is charming, the MMC endearing, and it’s all tied up with a bow of “happily ever after” that, despite it all, melted my heart.

“My heart aches. That’s the trouble with memories. They have a habit of creeping back into your head when you think you’ve managed to erase them.”

What I loved:

Alice is such a relatable and loveable character, and a lot of her struggles and shortcomings speak to me personally

Much of the cast of characters, including the smaller characters, feel fully fleshed out and three-dimensional

The plot, especially the smaller moments, feels incredibly true-to-life.

While I’m not usually a fan of split-POV, this book handles it incredibly well.

And what I didn’t:

I find the miscommunication or lack of communication trope incredibly frustrating, and this book relies on it a lot.

While I understand that there are people who do fit stereotypes, the choice to write a promiscuous pansexual character who cheats on her partner and a helpless fat character weaponizing her incompetence to be more lazy rubbed me the wrong way.

Dani’s growth especially rubbed me the wrong way, with all of her problems seemingly disappearing as soon as Alice stopped coddling her/she found a man. I understand the use of her weight loss as a marker of her growth, but it also made me uncomfortable, especially the way it's portrayed as the pounds “melting off” the second she got over herself and found a lover.

The twist at the end in Alice’s story was infuriating (see: the lack of communication trope).

You Should Read This If:

You enjoy escapist romances

You love exploring different cultures—especially through food

You enjoy (or at least don’t mind) the use of miscommunication as a plot device

This one was a nice simple easy read. Perfect for summer fit the season! Good writing, actually my first read by this author.

Summer Ever After gave fun summer abroad vibes. I really enjoyed the setting of Barcelona in the summer. I also liked that it was dual timelines and the past timeline focused on Andy’s POV and the present focused on Alice’s. I had a fun time reading the first 60% of the book but then after that, especially the ending, felt like a women’s fiction which isn’t necessarily a genre I enjoy. I also continuously kept forgetting or mixing up the side characters and two of them were extremely annoying. I also felt like there were a lot of things just left up to the imagination or maybe the author just forgot about them? And it seemed like after ten years, the characters hadn’t matured and they were facing the same exact problems that they did ten years ago which was extremely frustrating to read about. I also felt like the book could have been at least 60 pages shorter.

Thank you Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for this ARC!

☆ I’d recommend this book if you love:
🥘 descriptive writing about food
☀️ European summers
✨ past and present timelines

☆ Spice: closed door 🚪
☆ Language: some explicit language
☆ When to read: summer ☀️

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for this ARC.

Alice and Andy met in Barcelona ten years ago, when they were 20 and 21 and had some unforgettable weeks together. They fell in love but something happened and Alice returned to London alone, but has never forgotten him. Now, ten years later, her work in a language school brings her suddenly back to Barcelona and to Andy. Unfortunately, he is married to the elegant Mariana and they want to buy the language school she works for!

There are two timelines: ten years ago narrated by Andy in the past tense, the now narrated by Alice in the present tense. This worked really quite well for me.

The utterly gorgeous cover drew me in, and the warm-hearted second chances story reads well.

I loved the copious food descriptions (both Alice and Andy are foodies) but instead of describing Barcelona's famous art and architecture the author concentrates on sunshine and food and while there is a genuine love for cooking shining through, I found it a little limiting as a description of a world-class city.

The main problem is that the miscommunication and misunderstandings trope is used too heavily. We don't find out what happened to rip them apart until the very end of the book (and it is so dumb!). Especially Alice is a very frustrating character, but Andy is also someone who just let life happen to him because of the trauma with his brother Matt's death, which he feels responsible for. He is in very good company with Alice here who thinks she is responsible for her mother's accident, and that her penance is to forever having to look after her. Honestly, sometimes I wanted to bang their heads together! Alice's pansexual sister Charlie is such a breath of fresh air, and has exactly the right approach with their mother, something Alice neither sees nor appreciates until late in the day.

The epilogue is lovely though, with a happy ending for everyone. This is a pleasant escapist summer read if you can get over the fact they could have had a happy ending ten years earlier (and if you forget that Brexit exists which means you now can't simply move country like that anymore).

3.75 stars

Summer Ever After by J. Crittenden, published by Lake Union Publishing is the perfect summer, beach read. Set in beautiful Spain you can only fall in love with characters and story.
Blurb: Ten years ago, while travelling before starting a cookery apprenticeship, Alice fell head over heels for Barcelona: the food, the sun and the gorgeous Andy Hall…Family tragedy sent her back to London, but now, finally, she’s been given the chance to return. Only to find herself working alongside none other than Andy, the only man to ever break her heart.

The decade apart has changed them both, though he still has his frustratingly good looks―and is Alice imagining it or does the spark that always existed between them still burn just as brightly? Not ready to risk getting hurt again, she focuses on exploring the culinary delights of the city, and begins to remember a life she once dreamed of…

I usually do not DNF books, but for this one I had to. It was so hard to get into that I was dreading even thinking about reading it.

Thanks to NeGalley and Lake Union for the opportunity to read Summer Ever After by Jane Crittenden. A perfect book for those who enjoy food and travel with their romance.

This deliciously evocative modern romance brings together the themes of a heartbreaker from the past, current family dynamics, a love of food and cooking and, yes, love! It's a sensitive and expertly plotted delve into identity, the mistakes we make and whether it's too late to rectify them. A must for anyone who wants to feel caught up in a tangled love story and whisked away to warmer climes.