The Summer Hideaway

By Susan Wiggs

Susan Wiggs wrote her way into readers' hearts with stories of every woman's hopes and dreams. Now she returns with a touching tale of secrets and sacrifice, loss and redemption and a love too powerful to be denied. 

Never get attached–Private nurse and protected witness Claire Turner lives by this motto. Fleeing a treacherous past, she knows no other way. 

Never give up–In the twilight of his life, George Bellamy makes it his final wish to reconcile with an estranged brother. He and Claire journey to Willow Lake–where it all went wrong for him fifty years ago. 

Never let go–George's grandson Ross is ruled by a fierce devotion to family and a deep mistrust of the mysterious Claire yet sparks fly whenever she's near. In the face of wrenching loss, amid the enchantment of Willow Lake, Ross and Claire dare to risk everything for love.

www.susanwiggs.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Apr 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781488707865

Susan Wiggs

Susan Wiggs's life is all about family, friends, and fiction. She lives on an island in Puget Sound, and commutes to her writers' group in a motorboat. She is an international bestselling author, and her books have appeared in the #1 spot on the NYT bestseller list. The Apple Orchard has been made into a film, with others in production. Susan loves hiking, skiing, and surfing, but her favorite sport is reading a book.

Reviews for The Summer Hideaway

[readinggeek451 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another light romance in Wiggs's Lakeshore Chronicles. Emotionally satisfying, but the pacing is off a little: the suspense subplot goes into abeyance for a long time and then is too easily resolved.

[punxsygal · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Book 7 of the Lakeshore Chronicles introduces George Bellamy, estranged brother of Charles Bellamy. Diagnosed with a brain tumor, George Bellamy returns to Avalon to reunite with his brother after a fifty year break. Claire Turner accompanies George as his nurse. But George has other plans for her in the form of his grandson, Ross Bellamy, who has recently returned from the war in Afghanistan. This was another pleasant read to take you away from day to day troubles.

[honeydew69862004 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Summer Hideaway is about a woman Clare who is an end of life nurse taking care of George Bellamy. The story has two major parts of revolving. Georges' past of him growing up and falling in love. Also it revolves around Clare and George's grandson Ross. Clare is full of secrets never giving herself up to anyone. Ross is a vet just returning who is headstrong. Even though it didn't include my favorite character from the series it is still a good book. I'm just dying to know more about Daisy who is mentioned I believe a total of 4 or 5 times in this book.

[romsfuulynn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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Like a lot of these long series it's getting a little complicated, but while this has a nice romance it really is about end of life and a man who is dying who has taken the step of reconnecting with the brother from whom he has been estranged for 55 years.

The romance between the private care nurse who is attending him and the man's grandson, and the perfectly nice suspense plot concerning her past and the story arc of the man's family coming to terms with the fact that he is dying, and her relationship with the man's grandson are all brilliantly done.

But the coming to terms with dying, with both a life well lived and moving past old issues is what makes this book sing.

[mariedrake · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the book. The Summer Hideaway is a great story about George Bellamy, long, in depth, and very emotional. It had the power to make me tear up more than once, and it held my interest. It was less about the actual romance between Ross and Claire than I would have liked to read. That part of the story was a little flat. Not a lot of the building anticipation and expectations of a budding romance. I don't consider it to be as much of a romance novel as it is a great portrayal of a family's battles and life lessons learned. I borrowed this book from the library. I may recommend someone do the same.

[lindsaydiffee · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I just did not like the characters. I thought I would like the hero, Ross, in the beginning, when we saw him at war, and although I thought he was probably written relistically, there was just nothing special or interesting about him. Susan Wiggs "drew" him aptly, I guess, but I felt like I never got close to him; this is probably because there was nothing there for me to get close to. He was a grieving character who loved his grandfather. That's it. He seemed to care a lot more about his grandfather than our heroine (who, btw, I also felt very "far" away from). A romance novel set against a backdrop of a secondary character dying is just not romantic. To overcome that, the characters would have to have been excellent, and neither was.

[annertan · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not bad, but the ending was a little predictable.

[judithdcollins · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"Great characters - you will have to read all her books to catch up with all the players in the Lakeshore Chronicles! "