When listening to this book, it felt pretty similar to the tone and immaturity that I felt when reading The Summer I Turned Pretty series.

The story flips between different 5 year periods in the main characters' lives, starting from 16 years old to mid 30s. Because there was so much jumping between past and present, it felt like there was a major lack in development of the characters over time and rather than focusing on their growth, there was a lot of focus on milestones (such as Olivia's tennis career) that didn't necessarily add to the plot aside from location convenience.

I wanted to be able to feel more butterflies and sparks from Olivia and Fred, I just didn't get that raw emotion.

This one wasn't for me, but I would recommend it if you're seeking a quick beach read and like Jane Austen, as this is a modern retelling of Persuasion.

This book is a mix of second chance romance with a hint of family drama. This book felt like November 9th mixed with a beachy high society book. This book follows Olivia who is on the brink of divorce as she goes back to her hometown as her dad is selling their family home. As her and her sisters are boxing up their past she finds out the ex whose always been "the one who got away" is the man buying their house.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story. I found myself wanting to know as much as humanly possible about the couple I was rooting for. The one downside to this book is that it takes a while to get information. And you are rooting for a couple when you don't know why they broke up let alone broke up multiple times. That being said I do understand why it is written that way, it definitely kept me reading all day. Haha! The break ups (each one - and there are multiple) feel a little childish especially when they are older. The first time I understood but the second one? Very frustrating. The jumping back and forth between the past and present kept the story moving and II definitely was invested. I would rate this book a 3.5 but I will round up to a 4!

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a beach romantic read. Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. This book is perfect! Summer after Summer is a retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion. It had duel timelines, which I love. It was a modern take on a classic and I LOVED IT.

Summer After Summer was my first "beach read" of the season. The story was good but I found there was something missing for me and I could not fully get into the story. I am not sure if it was my mood but, I just felt "meh" when listening to it. The narrator's voice was easy to listen to.

Thank you Net Galley, Lauren Bailey, and Dreamscape Media for the opportunity to preview this audio book and the opinions expressed are my own.

Summer After Summer took me on a heartfelt journey as Olivia navigates the bittersweet nostalgia of returning to her family’s summer getaway in the Hamptons, where they are needing to pack it up as it is being bought by none other than her first love, Fred..
As Olivia grapples with the decision to sell the cherished property, her reconnection with first love Fred added an extra layer of emotional depth.
The audio format enhances the experience for me as I am attempting to try more audiobooks, and this one was easy for me to follow.
I found this book to be a perfect blend of nostalgia and romance, As I had hoped it would be.
I would recommend it as an enjoyable listen that will leave you longing for your own summer love story.
I believe this is the author’s debut novel, and I would look forward to reading/listening to more from her.

Thankyou to author Lauren Bailey, Alcove Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this book ahead of The publishing date.
Charlene 🤗📚🌸 @lastnownext

Modern interpretation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. It’s rather slow in the beginning. I wasn’t captivated by the story until the halfway point but after I thoroughly enjoyed it. Narrator was quite good. If you like modern Austen interpretations, you’ll like this book.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher.

I enjoyed the start of this book and I loved the ending but overall I felt kind of bored and meh throughout the book. I didn’t fall in love with any of the characters or the settings and I wonder if that would have been different if I had read the physical book. I don’t think I clicked with the narrator’s voice unfortunately. Overall I will recommend this book to anyone looking for a light summer read.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media & NetGalley for an ARC of this book, in exchange for my honest opinion.

I really enjoyed my time listening to this audiobook, it was like being transplanted to summer in the Hamptons!

This story is told in alternating timelines when Olivia and Fred met, and their current life. Usually alternating timelines can get confusing, but this one was executed perfectly. I loved seeing the beginning of how Fred and Olivia met, while still rooting for their eventual happy ever after.The story and world building was great, and I enjoyed getting to know all the characters.

This book totally felt like “The Summer I turned pretty” but the adult version. Full of love, loss, healing, the beach, fireworks, and fabulous summer parties, this is the perfect book to binge this summer! I highly recommend adding this book to your beach bag!

*My only complaint about the audiobook reading was that when the narrator would say something she was thinking she would make her voice go very low, and it was super hard to hear what she was saying during these parts (especially when driving in the car).

<b>Summer After Summer</b> by Lauren Bailey is a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s <b>Persuasion</b>. Olivia Taylor leaves her soon-to-be ex husband in NYC and heads to the Hamptons to help her father and sisters pack up their family estate. After many years of financial trouble, someone has finally purchased their sprawling beachfront property for an amount the family could not pass up. Packing up the estate will not be an easy task, it is the house they grew up in, the house their mother died in, and it holds a lifetime of memories including the time spent with her first love, Fred. Olivia doesn’t have the best relationship with her father and she and her sisters are not close, so naturally there is some family drama sprinkled in as well. It isn’t until she arrives back in the Hamptons that she finds out that Fred is the one who purchased the house. It has been 20 years since Olivia first met Fred on the beach and five years since their last interaction, which did not end well, but perhaps the fifth time’s the charm for them.

Fred and Olivia end up crossing paths every five years and through flashbacks to 2003, 2008, 2013, and 2018, the reader gets to experience all of their missed opportunities over the years. The chemistry between the MCs was evident as was their angst every time things didn’t work out. This book has a lovely cover, the possibility of a second chance romance, a very likable MMC, and takes place in a quaint beachside town, things that I enjoy in a summer read, but for me there were a few things that kept me from rating it higher. First of all Olivia, the FMC, came across as very immature and even petty at times. I would expect that in her teen years, but not as 36 year old woman. I understand her career as a tennis pro played a role in everything, but the very detailed tennis scenes felt like excess and not necessary to move the narrative forward. Lastly, the repetitive lack of communication between Olivia and Fred and self-sabotage was aggravating, but this is a personal issue since I find those to be one of my least favorite things when it comes to failed romances.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Megan Tusing, who skillfully portrayed a wide range of characters, making it effortless to distinguish between them, even as they aged. While her narration was generally excellent, there were moments when the narration felt excessively dramatic, which was disproportionate to the events in the story at the time. However, despite these minor critiques, the book has strong writing and an overall enjoyable narrative. I was emotionally invested in Olivia and Fred’s journey and was hoping for a happy ending for them. Overall, this was a solid debut novel and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a quick beach read. 3.5 stars 💫

Lauren Bailey's novel Summer After Summer was such a delight. The book follows Sophie and Frank back and forth through different summers they have spent together. Though the characters' actions frustrated me at times, they felt so human and realistic and I was definitely rooting for them throughout. I listened to it on audio and at the beginning it was a little hard to follow because the timelines jumped a lot, but it got better as I continued to listen.

This book is cute, bingeworthy, and the perfect summer read. I will absolutely be reading more by this author.

Thank you to Lauren Bailey, Net Galley, and Dreamscape Media for the opportunity to listen to an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

Good summer book! It really felt like she touched on real life problems within this and felt realistic to me. It was emotional yet heartwarming. A wonderful read!

Thank you Dreamscape for an early audiobook copy.

"Summer After Summer" follows Olivia and Fred, as they first meet as teenagers on the beaches of Hampton, and snippets of the various summers that the two spend together, each depicting the collapse of their love story. "Persuasion" retellings are always difficult as Jane Austin's most pensive novel, but I think Lauren Bailey did a good job of adapting the source material and developing Olivia and Fred into their own characters. Die-hard Jane Austin fans may be frustrated with the big detail that Bailey changed from Anne and Fredrick's story, but I think the change was pulled off for Olivia and Fredrick.

Megan Tusing's narration was excellent for telling Oliva's story and this will be a perfect summer beach read to recommend to readers.

Summer After Summer was such a heart=breaking listen. It kept me engaged, wanting to know what happened Olivia Taylor and Fred, would they or wouldn't they end up together? There are so many things I enjoyed about this one. Olivia's dedication to tennis being one of the things. I also enjoyed the twist in the book. Like whoa. While I sort of saw it coming, I liked it -- not for certain characters, but for the overall story. It worked.

I enjoyed the narrator, Megan Tusing. as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the advanced listen in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Olivia comes to the Hamptons to help dad pack up their home since it just sold but she is also trying to get away from her husband while they are in a rocky place. She was not expecting to run into Fred, the real love she didn't get to keep, and find out that he is the one buying the house. She is worried of all the emotion that it will bring but knowing that she is separating form her husband makes it a little easier to be able to explore.

I really enjoyed this story and the ending was perfect for the funky business I felt had been going on the whole time. Ann seemed too good to be true and the fact that Wes wanted to come back in the middle of everything and be involved in financial decisions gave me the ick. The flashbacks to previous times with Fred got to be a lot since there were quite a few of them, but I did enjoy getting to see their backstory as well. It reminded me of an Elin Hiderbrand style book set at the beach with family and relationship drama till something blows everything up!

Thank you NetGalley and Lauren Bailey for the audio ARC of Summer After Summer!

First of all the narration was absolutely perfect. Good narration can really make or break an audio book for me and this one was firmly in the camp of great narration.

In terms of the actual story, I really enjoyed it. The concept was a mix of a little cliche (but aren’t all romances A LITTLE cliche?) and surprisingly twisty. The only thing that was a bit of a miss for me was the constant timeline jumping. At times, it was hard to reconcile where in the timeline I was until a few minutes into the chapter which caused me a little confusion in certain parts of the story.

Overall I really enjoyed this audiobook and I think it’s going to be a great summer read!

3 stars

Thank you to NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book was okay, there wasn't really anything super special nor was there anything that made it a "bad book", there just wasn't much that made the story stand out.
It was just your typical coastal romance book revolving around a house and old past love with some family drama.

The characters were pretty realistic and all had their own issues which I liked, even though some of the characters weren't likeable lol

It was a really fast read and I still couldn't put it down.
The book was still enjoyable and I would still love to read more books from this author

This fell quite flat for me, and was a bit of an annoying read. Far fetched, and out there. Probably the book for someone, but just not my thing.

Thank you to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for the chance to listen to this audio and review.

DNF. This book was just so predictable. I felt like it was a direct copy or compilation of every other "summer" romance story out there. It was. not original and I grew bored around 20%. Onward.

ʙ ᴏ ᴏ ᴋ • ʀ ᴇ ᴠ ɪ ᴇ ᴡ

📖 Summer After Summer
✍🏻 @laurenbaileyauthor
⭐️ 4.5
🫶🏻 ARC #41 of 2024
📚 95/100

🄿 🅄 🄱 • 🄳 🄰 🅃 🄴: May 7th, 2024

First off I want to say thank you to @netgalley, @laurenbaileyauthor, @alcovepress and @dreamscape_media for this ebook/audio ARC.

I really enjoyed this book! It gave me Mary Kay Andrews vibes.

♥️ fated mates / second chances
🏠 small town
✨ young love
🕰️ duel timeline
😰 drama, mystery and some thrill
🏖️ beach vibes
☀️ summer scenes
💸 wealth

I’ll say it again….it had it all! I LOOVVEEEE a book that has family drama, romance/love and even some mystery and a twist. Like romance is romance. Thrillers are thrillers. BUT when you throw it all into one, 🤌🏻

On another note, the audio was does fantastic! My favorite narrator, so it made it all that much better.

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