First off this is a clean romance, which is fine, just one of those things I wish was easier to discern up front.

This story caught my attention by drawing similarities to either Love and Other Words, or Every Summer After. If you’ve read either of those you’ll know that structurally they are very similar. I was worried this might be too much of a good thing for I read a 3rd novel with a similar premise. That said, there were enough differences to truly make this book feel like a unique experience.

For the most part I found it to be an enjoyable read, however the pacing was a little off for me, let’s just say that Sam (Female main) stays engaged for WAY longer than expected, leaving very little time in the story for the “fall back in love” portion. Essentially the majority of what we got of Sam and Wyatt’s love story occurs via flashbacks. More time should have been dedicated to present day fall back in love.

I loved this quick and easy read. I loved the story of first loves and life and how sometimes you can come back to that time in your life when you could be yourself.

Sam is set to marry Jack and returns to her parents summer home in Long Island to prepare for her upcoming wedding. Being home brings back simpler times with her best friend and eventual boyfriend Wyatt. It is a sweet story about times past and figuring out how to make yourself happy as you get older rather than making everyone else happy!

As a teenager spending her summers in Long Island, Sam thought her whole life was planned out: graduate high school, get into UCLA, and spend the rest of her life with Wyatt, who she was deeply in love with. But sometimes bigger things in life get in the way and everything is thrown off. Now 13 years later, Sam has left the past behind, is engaged to a wonderful man and getting ready to have a beautiful wedding, but the real question is whether or not she’s even truly happy and will seeing Wyatt again change all of this.

I adored this book. The switch from present to past didn’t leave me wanting to bang my head against a brick wall which is always a book reading bonus & I didn’t fully mind the switch from 1st person to 3rd person narration. You could without a doubt see the difference in who Sam was growing up and who she wound up trying to be when she was older. Personally, I blame Dr Judy (her therapist) who had the audacity to tell a 17 year old Sam that was never in love with Wyatt and she needed to detox from him because he was a simple “addiction” for a teenager. While I get that it’s a fictional book, I was super angry about this Dr Judy lady because what the actual f*#k lady, just because someone is 17 does NOT mean they do not have the capacity to fall in love.

The loved the character progressions and how their stories truly portrayed their growth. I also loved how Sam was vulnerable and was able to evaluate her life and realize she needed to start doing what was best for her.

The ending did feel a little rushed but either way I really did enjoy this book.

Thank you #NetGalley & Penguin for providing me with an ARC of #SameTimeNextSummer for my honest review

3.75⭐️ An enjoyable reunited first love by the summer home beach read. Felt a bit new/young adult to me.
Highly recommend, in the mean time, reading author’s recent book Norah Goes Off Script.

Oh my gosh this so exceeded my expectations! It’s a familiar story but the writing and heart in Same Time Next Summer set it on another level. It isn’t chick lit. It is sincere and gut wrenching and sweet and beautiful. The magnetism between the characters is honest.

Enjoyable but I could not get over Wyatt’s betrayal so it was hard to root for a HEA there. Also felt the ending was a little rushed.

I love a good second chance romance! This book is duel points of view and duel timelines which I feel can get really messy fast but the author did a good job of intertwining them in a way that didn’t leave you bored with the past or present story line. I will say it took me about 35% of the way to get really invested into the MC. I do really love how Sam finds herself again after trying so hard to make her life what she thought it needed to be rather than what she wanted it to be. My biggest issue is that although it is duel POV I don’t feel like I really got to know Wyatt as well as I wanted to and the ending felt rushed. I can dig a good quick summer read but I really wanted to see more of them at the end. Their story felt slightly unfinished and I really wanted more at the end. I read this more as a chick lit rather than a romance but overall I really enjoyed it. The characters and their struggles felt real and well thought out. I was rooting for them and had a hard time putting it down at the end. It’s definitely going to make a great summer day beach read!

The second chance specifically childhood friends to strangers to lovers is something that I will never stop gravitating towards. The premise was not anything new as I have read several books with something similar before with some of those being my favorite novels of all time. However, I still had a really good time reading this book and I'm glad I had the chance to pick up this arc! I definitely recommend this book especially for all the second chance girlies out there. This book is for you!

SAME TIME NEXT SUMMER is the follow-up to Annabel Monaghan's most recent release NORA GOES OFF SCRIPT. As a huge Nora fan, I was thrilled to receive this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

SAME TIME NEXT SUMMER follows Sam, planning her wedding to her fiancée Jack, while trying to get closure around her first love Wyatt. As a huge fan of second chance love, and friends to lovers, I loved Sam and Wyatt's story, both then and now, and found this novel to be very enjoyable and heartfelt. It didn't resonate with me as well as NORA GOES OFF SCRIPT though, as Jack's character felt a bit under-developed at times, and I would have liked more time devoted to the resolution of the story. The final few pages felt rushed and could have been stretched to a few more chapters, to really enjoy Sam's happy ending. In all, SAME TIME NEXT SUMMER is a beautifully written, compelling story of love lost and found, of second chances and the magic of summer. I highly recommend it to Monaghan fans and first-time readers alike.

Ah! I'm so glad NetGalley provided me with an ARC of this book because I couldn't go till next summer to get more of Annabel Monaghan's writing. The title of the book had me concerned it would fall into a "just like so many others" category, but I was beyond pleasantly surprised. I read the book in two sittings and fell in love with the characters just like in Nora Goes Off Script. Monaghan does such a great job of writing realistic, beautiful and complex female characters. You can see, smell and feel each scene with the way she writes and I didn't want it to end!

such a lovely, beautiful book. as with the author’s other book, nora goes off script, my heart was first broken then put back together. the emotions really jump off the page. a bit cliched, but what romance book isn’t? i knew what would probably happen but that didn’t make me enjoy it any less.

“Same Time Next Summer” is a beautifully written, visual wonderland of delight. The dialogue is poetically delicious, the beach setting intoxicating, and the characters are entertaining and endearing. Second chances are in the air for everyone, family drama is front and center, and beautiful music is the backdrop for it all.

From the minute Sam and Jack drove through the Lincoln Tunnel on their way to her family’s beach house I knew I was in for the vacation of a lifetime. “You can’t turn around in the tunnel” Sam commented, as she admitted to herself that she dreaded this visit with her parents. But at the same time, part of her yearned to relive her younger days when life was simple, sunny and never planned or scrutinized.

The beach house was full of happy chaos as her parents welcomed them into paradise. It wouldn’t be the same if the atmosphere was staid and orderly which was exactly how Sam was living her life. Where was the carefree young girl who started each day with a brisk swim in the ocean, smiling as the waves washed over her? The longer she spent at the beach the more she missed her younger self and the happiness that was always in her heart.

Seeing her first love Wyatt again after all these years confused her and forced her to reflect on the past and how much she had changed. Wyatt was even more perfect than she had remembered and hearing him sing made her feel like the starry-eyed girl she once was. Sam thought she had her life all planned out but the allure of the beach, the peacefulness of the waves along with her memories, brought back feelings she once thought were gone. Her love for Wyatt all those years ago was magical, pure and one she had never forgotten. Why was he back at the beach and what should she do about it?

I was so excited to request this book once I saw it was recommended for fans of Carley Fortune’s Every Summer After because that is one of my favorite books!
This story is different from Every Summer After, but it has just enough similarities that I couldn’t stop comparing the two. I do think I would’ve enjoyed this one a little more if I hadn’t read Every Summer After.

This was a quick, easy beach read. Even though this book has 320 pages, I feel like it was so short! It went by so quickly, and I don’t feel like we really got a deep dive into the characters. I would’ve really like to experience more of Sam and Wyatt together as adults. I didn’t feel like they had any chemistry in the scenes they did have together.

Overall this was a fun but predictable read. I enjoyed it, but the ending felt rushed.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I feel like I've read two other books with almost the exact same plot... buuuut I loved both of those and loved this one as well. It's not a copy of those other book by any means and was a really fun read!

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, from PENGUIN Group Putnam and #NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity to preview and review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

A fun, feel good novel about second chances.

How many times will I eagerly and willingly read the same story over and over again? The answer is there is no limit. I just love the second-chance romance, childhood friends-to-lovers, first love, and dual timeline tropes so much. Bonus points if there’s a lake or beach house involved.

This was incredibly similar to Love & Other Words by Christina Lauren, Every Summer After by Carley Fortune, and Some Mistakes Were Made by Kristin Dwyer. The issue with Same Time Next Summer? It just didn’t live up to what those books achieved. It’s tough to compete with well-loved books that have similar plots and I’m a little bummed that I didn’t enjoy this more. I was very invested in the couples from those other books, but in STNS I felt there wasn’t as much depth in the relationship. It also didn’t really bring anything brand new or interesting to the table.

It was a short read, which I typically enjoy, but I would’ve preferred this to be longer and really flesh out the past timeline so I could fall in love with Sam and Wyatt. Same Time Next Summer also requires the suspension of belief because there’s one part of the storyline that, I’m sorry, would absolutely not happen in the age of social media. Monaghan did her best to explain how that was possible but when I read it, I was like yeah… no. There was some back and forth between 1st and 3rd person POVs with the past and present timelines that I didn’t love, it made the voice feel a bit inconsistent. The ending felt rushed and I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to spend more time with the characters once everything came together. I wish I wasn’t stuck in the headspace of comparing this to similar books instead of just enjoying it for what it is, but that’s a risk the author took.

Overall, a fun read that will be perfect for summer vacations. The story had such a positive, feel-good conclusion and I was happy to see Sam figure her life out. I’m very curious to see how this one lands with other early readers!

3.5 ⭐️

I really enjoyed this book. It will make an amazing summer read when release in June 2023.

It follows Sam a 30 something about to marry a doctor, Jack based in NYC. The story flips back and forth between present day and Sam’s pasts summers spent on Long Island at her family’s beach house. You learn about her young love with neighbor Wyatt.

Overall it was a feel good story! I loved watching Sam and Wyatt’s relationship bloom through their youth.

I agree with other comments that the end was quick and cut short. I would have LOVED more time with them in the present.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this book. It’s the perfect feel-good read, and a fabulous follow-up to the first book I read by this author, NORA GOES OFF SCRIPT (also great!) In her latest work, Monaghan throws a new cast of characters not real life questions of dealing with loss, who we trust to guide us as we figure out how to move forward, and living “safe” vs. being honest about who you are and what you want. She puts her characters in challenging situations, but it’s all drawn so subtly and with such nuance that it feels true to life. And as a reader who needed a story where things were going to be okay in the end, I instinctually trusted her to land the plane in a way that would be satisfying. And wow, did she. I don’t want to leave spoilers, so I’ll just say - this is a great group of people you’ll be glad to spend time with as this story unfolds. Highly recommend!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book.

Same Time Next Summer was a quick read with my favorite trope- friends to lovers. There were so many parts of this book I liked- I adored Wyatt, Sam’s family was great, and the setting. The switch from 1st to 3rd person from then to now (it was confusing at first and felt choppy at times), adultery (parents) and lying (Sam + Jack), and the rushed ending were my least favorite parts of the book.

Overall, this was a good read with a sweet (although rushed) ending!

Thank you kindly to Penguin and NetGalley for an ARC of this book that comes out June 6, 2023!

Same Time Next Summer by @annabelmonaghan - what a great book! I picked it up because I loved Monaghan’s last book, Nora Goes Off Script. It did not disappoint! You’ll love the beach house setting and the lovable characters.
Thanks to @netgalley and @penguinusa @putnambooks for the ARC!
#netgalley