Sam was such a relatable character. How she was living this happy life and then was blindsided by her husband wanting to have an open marriage. But when she really took the time, she realized maybe it wasn’t such a happy life and how she had been everything to her family for so long that she forget to be anything for herself. I loved seeing her grow and have fun and do things because she wanted to. I loved how quietly Logan had been supportive of her throughout the years but I did not like how quickly they moved into love with one another. It seems like it should take more time than that to end a marriage and fall back in love.

Not really sure exactly how I feel about this story… I definitely cried within the first few chapters because I can somewhat relate.

Borrowed for the cover and the title (love a good Swift reference) but finished for the plot. This story started out so devastating! But by the end, our main character had found herself in so many different ways. I love the level of empowerment we see Samantha gain as she walks out her front door and through her summer adventures of self discovery.

This was such a heartfelt and heartwarming read that focuses on self discovery. This book started out sad so I really didn’t know what to expect, but this story really surprised me as to how relatable it is.
This book will teach you to put yourself first and to learn how to love yourself. I highly recommend this book

Such a cute romance for the summer. It was like reading a book by taylor swift, The characters are so fun and relatable! Love love love!

Cruel Summer follows Sam, a 40 year old woman, who's life is turned upside down as she and her husband go on a summer long separation after he asks for an open marriage. Not knowing what to do with her new found free time, she agrees to help her husband's best friend, Logan, drive classic cars to their owners.

I really enjoyed this book right up until the halfway mark. I thought Sam's self-discovery journey and learning about what she wants in life was great. I liked how she examined her life and realized how much she was living for other people. However, I thought Sam's internal monologue and struggles got really tedious. I'm sure it's probably realistic for someone who was thrust into the position she was in, but as a reader I wanted to yell at her "Okay I got it, let's move on!". I also didn't particularly enjoy the direction that Sam and Logan took, but I probably should have seen that coming and that is on me.

I have not read any of Yates other works so I cannot say how this novel compares to them. However, I would still consider giving the author another shot with a different premise than this one.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I love Maisey’s writing style. The female main character, Samantha, is married with children and then is blindsided when her husband asks for an open marriage. Samantha’s solution is to offer a summer of separation with no contact between the two. This was a beautiful story about self-discovery and really pulled out some emotions. I think every woman should read this as a reminder to trust herself and love ALL parts of herself. HIGHLY recommend!

Maisey! I enjoyed this book so much! I left a review on my Goodreads and making a post for my instagram soon. Thank you for allowing me to read and review your book!

I know this might be a formatting issue with it being an advance reader copy but I wanted to let you know it randomly gave me page numbers and the chapters didn’t start in new pages. Also everytime a word with “fl” appeared. It always had a space between the f and the remainder of the word. It was strange. A few other items I noticed was on page 84 the sentence had two “had”s. It said “Will had had any number of productive…” also around 59% can’t was misspelled. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to be okay again. There are just things you cann’t put back in the box, can you?”

Last but not least, a few times I recall see twentytwo instead of twenty-two.

Again thank you again for allowing me to read! I can’t wait for your book to launch. Going to recommend it to all my friends and peers!!

I wanted to love this book so much! The premise sounded really appealing and I wanted to know more about the characters relationship. Getting married young myself, this was really interesting to me. However, the Authors writing style was a bit strange. Every other sentence was stunted with “…” after varying words in conversations between the characters. I found this to be extremely distracting and made it very difficult for me to read. I’m very much a person that sees what they read and this just interrupted my train of thought constantly.

It was a turn of events that was a journey in this book. I really was fascinated by the main character and am happy I came upon this book. Thank you to the author , Netgalley for this wonderful book.

This book unfortunately wasn't my cup of tea. I tried to get into it, but after reading about 20% of the book it wasn't working for me.
The writing style is great, I think Yates has a lot going for her. I just couldn't get past how nothing really happened in the first 10% of the book. There was slight backstory, and then it was just Will talking about wanting to "experience more" and Sam having an existential crisis because her husband isn't happy. Then the next 10% was more existential crisis and anger. Wasn't something I could see myself enjoying

The beginning of the book hooked me in , but that was it I feel like Sam’s character started so strong and then her inner dialogue felt repetitive ! Idk it was wierd Will (her husband) best friend ran straight to her it felt like to Wisk her away and then finding out he had feels for her in hs idk wasn’t for me
Thank you to NetGalley and Canary Street Press for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. It was better than I thought it would be. It reminded me how you're never too old to find love again. The ending was good as well. I'm grateful that netgalley and the publishers let me read this in exchange for an honest review.

“Cruel Summer” is by Maisey Yates. This book follows Samantha (Sam) over four months. The book opens with Sam being told by her husband Will that he wants an open marriage. Sam isn’t happy with this idea and together they decide to separate over the summer, vacating their house during that time. Sam is convinced that Will will realize that leaving Sam was the worst thing he could do and they’ll get back together. Will’s best friend, Logan, suggests that he and Sam (who regards him as both Will’s friend and a family friend) drive across the country returning cars to their owners (he’s a classic car restorer). There are some flashback chapters giving more background to Logan and Sam over the years. On the positive side, I liked Ms. Yates’s suggested play list to accompany this book. There are some Taylor Swift references, but if you don’t see them, don’t worry about it - only one that I caught was a lyric reference and if you miss it, it’s fine. On another positive note, I liked how Sam’s thinking changed over the course of the summer. However - the one huge downside for me - was all the thinking Sam did on the page - in lots and lots of inner monologue … and repeated information. I get introspection, but a) there’s a lot of it, and b) a lot of it is about shame, society norms, and presentation to others. I also found some of Sam’s cluelessness in some situations (looking at you bull riding scene) to be odd, especially since previously she was talking about “stranger danger.” I’m glad that at the end Sam was able to go in the direction she wanted to with the support from those she loved. For me, this was an okay read - though I’d read another book by this author. Solid 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

5 stars!

Maisey Yates is a new to me author and I loved every minute of her introspective writing! While I believe this was a romance story, I would recommend this to anyone who likes their romance to toe the line of women’s fiction. Beautifully written and full of emotion, I loved Sam and Logan and honestly would kill for bonus epilogues of them, though the epilogue we were given was a great ending. Consider me a dedicated reader of Maisey Yates moving forward.

I loved the premise of this one. The absolute HEARTBREAK of being asked for an open marriage when you are under the impression that everything was fine? The road trips and the way that introspection corresponds with the land? Love love love. I appreciated the internal monologues, the emphasis on growth in your forties, the various locales.

I had some qualms while reading, which is what made this a 2.75 rounded up to a 3 star rating. Perhaps the biggest issue I had is the timeline. With such an emphasis on personal growth, it really bothered me that Logan had a crush on her in high school and had this decades-long unrequited love. I was really hoping that this would be a story of finding love in the present, which would have felt more realistic, but it wasn't. I found that wholly disappointing.

Other things that bothered me: talking about her walking along Lake Erie while she was in Chicago, weird timeline things like her claiming that FOB was popular while she was in high school, the constant reminder that omg this is called Cruel Summer and the summer is cruel!! (sarcasm for that last one)

But seriously. The first half, where she is learning and growing, is so much stronger than the second half where Logan and Sam get together. I'm keeping this a 3 star rating because the first half was that good and poignant.

Thank you to NetGalley and Canary Street Press for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

4.5 stars.
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I have to say this story started out so sad. Within the first several chapters, I was rolling in tears. With a start like that, I was questioning the author’s direction.

The entire book ended up being something I was not expecting. As the author unraveled this amazing story, it was hard to not feel emotions. It was hard to not look at your own life in a different way and examine the choices made. It was hard to wonder if you see yourself differently than how other people see you.

I love Logan’s progression through their travels and how he challenged Sam with the status quo. Was there an ulterior motive? Eventually, the truth comes through, and it is an amazing connection. Sparks fly between them throughout the story as it changes from challenges and introspection to a true match that is both emotional and steamy.

Cruel Summer is an intense deep dive into self-discovery. This one will make you feel something. It’s such an amazing story!

Cruel Summer
by Maisey Yates
4⭐️

I considered dnf’ed it right at the start when the husband asked for an open marriage but kept reading bc it was late and I needed to read at least 5 mins to keep my kindle streak alive. I got accidentally hooked and read half the book that same night. This was a leaning a little more towards women’s fiction rather than romance but I didn’t mind at all. This was such an amazing and beautiful journey. I loved Sam and I was rooting for her and Logan to get on the same page immediately!

Obsessed with the touches of Taylor Swift 🫶🏼 also this had a great past/present balance, most books with a dual timeline have too many back and forths and here it was executed well!

My only real issues were that there was a bit too much internal monologue/introspection and the whole we made a mistake re: high school pregnancy was mentioned way too much and made it sound like sex is bad when they were just irresponsible and didn’t use birth control.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for this gifted arc!

I absolutely loved this book!!!

It now has a special place in my heart. I think as a woman you’re always expected to be a certain way and always think what others might say and always always ALWAYS put everyone else’s needs before you own, those are topics that are really highlighted in this book.

It was so relatable in that aspect as well as how messy grief is. How it shatters you. How you have to learn to deal with it, process it. How healing is not linear and some days are better than others.

This book also touched on allowing yourself to be as you are and be happy with just you.

Finding yourself again after you’ve allowed yourself to be lost in everyone else.

There was relationship love in this book but more than anything it was about loving you, falling in love with yourself and choosing yourself and your happiness because YOU MATTER!

Also highlights how healing love is and how you can become the best version of yourself when you’re loved completely as you are and as you transform into who you’re meant to be.

This was a wonderfully written book. I loved every bit of it. I see myself reading this again in the future. It was so beautiful.

The author’s note mentioned her real life battle with loss and grief and as someone that struggles with that, it was so palpable how realistic it was that I didn’t need to read that to know this author knows what it’s like to lose someone.

I could go on endlessly about this book but I’ll stop here.

Thank you NetGalley, Harlequin Trade Publishing, Canary Street Press and Maisey Yates for giving me an ARC of this spectacular book!

I'm a big swiftie so obviously, the title of this book pulled me in. It had nothing to do with Swift, so no relation there, but I will say the playlist Yates created to go with the book is a banger with lots of Swift songs.
This book was hard for me to get into at first because the concept was very out there for me but quickly I was pulled in and couldn't put my Kindle down. We are introduced to Sam who is asked by her husband Will of 20+ years, to consider having an open marriage. Sam is blindsided and they come to a compromise to spend the summer apart, if they want each other in the end, they'll stay married, and if they find that they are truly missing something in their marriage that needs something else, whether an open marriage or divorce they'll consider it when the time comes.
Sam spends her summer with Logan, Will's best friend, who works on the restoration of old cars and then delivers them to their new owners. As a distraction, Logan invites Sam along to be his second driver. Over the summer, they get closer and realize they both have been suppressing feelings for each other that they've had for awhile.
I thought the storyline was a bit cliche, the husband's best friend... but what Sam learned about herself and the growth she had so really what kept me reading.
I can't recommend this read enough, everyone go check it out when it's released June 24, 2025!
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Thank you, NetGalley, the author and the publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.