Summer House

Summer House is one of Nancy Thayer’s Nantucket novels, working in the family gathering at the summer house format that her catalogue has used in many variations. The novel follows the various members of an extended family who have gathered at their Nantucket summer house for the season, with the wider plot developing through the romantic, family, and personal complications that the gathering brings into focus.

Thayer’s multigenerational family novels reward readers who enjoy the kind of slow building family fiction that takes its time with multiple characters and multiple plot threads. The Nantucket setting is rendered with the kind of specific detail that only an actual island resident can produce, and the various family members are written with the warm psychological care that distinguishes Thayer’s best work.

For longtime Nancy Thayer fans, Summer House is a comfortable summer read. For new readers, the novel is a fair introduction to her family chronicle approach.