Aug 26

Aug 26 A Summer to Remember

Best Audiobooks, 2021 Best, Fiction, Five Star Books, Historical Fiction, Summer Reads

Score: 4.5/5 Bookmarks

Steam Level: 🍆 /5

Thank you to St Martin’s Press for gifting me a copy of A Summer to Remember by Erika Montgomery.

I suppose this is contemporary fiction, or maybe women’s lit, but it’s also so much more. There is mystery, romance, history, and wonderful characters that the author has made come alive in such a wonderful way.

Frankie Simon lives in LA and runs a memorabilia shop on Hollywood Boulevard. It was her and her mother’s shop until her mom passed away in a car crash. Without her mom, who was her only family as far as she’s aware, Frankie feels untethered. When her mom’s boyfriend finds an old photograph and some unopened letters among her mother’s things Frankie starts to think they may hold a clue to who her father is. As she starts to investigate she uncovers a whole other life her mother never told her about, and with that Frankie gets a better understanding of who she is as well.

We get glimpses back into the past, as well as the current timeline, and the author reveals each piece of the puzzle in such a perfectly timed way that you won’t want to put this book down once you start it.

I found the author’s writing style to be a completely charming combination of soothing while also having me completely hooked and wanting to know what happens next.

This is the perfect end-of-summer read, and I can’t recommend it enough.

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Synopsis:

For thirty-year-old Frankie Simon, selling movie memorabilia in the shop she opened with her late mother on Hollywood Boulevard is more than just her livelihood--it's an enduring connection to the only family she has ever known. But when a mysterious package arrives containing a photograph of her mother and famous movie stars Glory Cartwright and her husband at a coastal film festival the year before Frankie's birth, her life begins to unravel in ways unimaginable.

What begins is a journey along a path revealing buried family secrets, betrayals between lovers, bonds between friends. And for Frankie, as the past unlocks the present, the chance to learn that memories define who we are, and that they can show us the meaning of home and the magic of true love.

Experience the salty breeze of a Cape Cod summer as it sweeps through this sparkling, romantic, and timeless debut novel tinged with a love of old Hollywood.