This book is really interesting because it’s something we can all relate to: wondering what happened to childhood friends that moved out of our lives at various points. Not all of them are (hopefully) as dramatic as the disappearance of Dee and her family, and certainly not as awful as their return!

The book has a great level of suspense because it’s obvious throughout the entire story that something is very, very off here. But it takes until the end to figure out what exactly is going on with Dee, her brother and daughter. Meanwhile, we also get a glimpse of the backstory of Sera and Dee’s mothers, who have some history themselves.

The atmosphere is very tense and dark, set against the backdrop of various heat waves that sweep through the area. That makes summertime the perfect time to read this book. I could feel the heat and humidity in the book from the descriptions - and that created a great tension that kept the book crackling.

I really enjoyed this book and would recommend to anyone looking for a quick summer read - there’s a heatwave coming, so grab your copy!

This story’s main focus is on Sera, who having lost her husband goes back with her daughter to live with her mother where she grew up. This is mainly a story about childhood friendships and secrets. I loved the dual timeline , being told from Sera in the present and from Mimi her mother in the past. How those secrets affect both the mothers and their daughters and the friendships made and lost.

I love a good mystery and this has so many it sent my head in a spin. Why did Dee and her family disappear? Who is Henri who has moved into Dee and Leo’s childhood farm. How did Mimi know Hazel, Dee and Leo’s mum and whose body has been uncovered in the barn?

Sera was a wonderful, trusting and slightly naive character whom I warmed to instantly and rooted for throughout the entire book. Henri was a great inclusion, a damaged character who I couldn’t work out if I could trust or not. His scars and closed attitude along with him being a stranger make him almost a leper in the neighbourhood and a figure of gossip among the locals.

I’m being very careful with how I write this review as there is so much going on in the book if I mention one plot point it may give clues to another.

If you fancy a multi layered book of intrigue, suspense and well written characters then this is the book for you.

While I wouldn't use the phrase "totally gripping psychological thriller" - The Darkest Summer is still a good read. Friendship, a missing brother - you know...all the basic stuff that sells books these days. it's all there.

It tipped heavy into a soapy drama, which for me - doesn't work.

Still - I'm sure people will like it.

This twisty, readable book is perfect for a hot summer’s day. You can practically feel the heat sizzling from the pages as the author vividly describes the sweltering weather and fires. It is a mystery filled with dark secrets, murder and life-changing revelations.

For fifteen years Sera has wondered what became of her best friend, Dee, and her family after they disappeared suddenly one day that hot summer. When she sees Dee’s brother Leo back in town she’s hoping that she finally gets answers and the chance to rekindle her lost friendship. But it is soon apparent that Dee and Leo aren’t the people she used to know, and that there seems to be something sinister about the secrets they’re keeping. Maybe inviting them into her home wasn’t the wisest thing to do...

The Darkest Summer is set in the New Forest in the present day with flashbacks to the summers of 1990 and 2003. The scenery of the New Forest is described with breathtaking beauty and is a large part of the story. I spent my formative years near that area and as I read it conjured up images of my youth spending time in places like the ones Sera describes. It is an almost idyllic place to be and I was so fully immersed in the book that I really felt like I was back there.

As well as our main storyline there are numerous subplots that run parallel in the flashbacks and ultimately merge together, though I couldn’t see how some of them would. I loved the clever twists and turns the author wrote that made seemingly mismatched the pieces fit together.

One subplot was Henri, the Sera’s new neighbour. I had a soft spot for Henri from the start and had a gut feeling he was a good guy, so I was hoping I’d be proven right. I loved the blossoming friendship between him and Sera and the mystery surrounding his past. I had no predictions about his past so I thoroughly enjoyed she surprises in his storyline. The subplot concerning Mimi and Hazel was also fascinating and I enjoyed learning more about both mothers and how they came to be the women their daughters now know, particularly Mimi as she’s not the warmest character in the book.

This book was filled with a host of colourful characters, each of which I loved for different reasons. Sera, our main narrator and our protagonist, was a great character. She and her daughter Katie moved back to her hometown to live with her mother three years ago after her husband died suddenly. She’s still working through her grief and feels suffocated at times by her mother, who she’s always had a difficult relationship with. When she was a child her single mother was mostly learning lines or away working, so she got little of the attention she craved. Instead, she found maternal attention from Hazel, her best friend Dee’s mother, who was the cool, vivacious, affectionate mother she dreamed of. She and Dee were inseparable, had many things in common, and Sera spent most of her time on their farm and felt a part of their family so their sudden disappearance cut her deeply. She’s never recovered from that loss so rekindling those relationships is a dream come true when Dee and her brother Leo first come back into her life and, as a reader I was rooting for that, and for the potential relationship between Sera and Leo.

Dee was so well written that despite the massive change in her personality and how moody and dismissive she is as an adult, I had a lot of sympathy for her. It seemed like she must have been through something extremely traumatic as she was showing signs of mental health issues and possibly PTSD. Her refusal to talk about anything that had happened was suspicious, especially as Leo was cagey too, but I hoped it was just that she was too traumatised to discuss it yet and he was respecting her wishes. The author made the many facets of her personality completely believable but like Sera I too got tired of her outbursts, how she controlled the entire household with them, her taking advantage of people, and with her strange behaviour towards her daughter. By the end I couldn’t stand her and wanted Sera to get as far away from her as possible.

This intriguing story started slowly and built the tension steadily until it became a crescendo in the last third of the book. It didn’t feel like a tense thriller but was full of mystery and had me guessing throughout. The many twists and turns were mostly unpredictable, with one in particular completely blindsiding me and turning so much of what I had predicted on its head.

I hadn’t read any of the author’s books before this one but when I read the description I was sold and I will definitely read more of her work. A compelling, character-driven summer read that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys mysteries and literary fiction.

Thank you to Sarah Hardy at BOTBS Publicity, Hera Books, Ella Drummond and NetGalley for the invitation to be part of the blog tour and providing the E-book ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book has some problems for me. Yes it has darkness, suspense and just enough secrets to keep you reading, but unfortunately, not enough to make me enjoy it. I would not call this "a gripping psychological thriller", I would say this was a mystery. Also I found the writing style to be a bit clumsy and off. Overall I thought the book was a bit slow and a bit predictable.
I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book is marketed as a psychological thriller, but to me it seemed more like literary fiction. It was a slow burn. The setting is a huge part of the story and the scenery is described with beauty.

The story centers around Sera, a young widow who lives with her mother and her young daughter. A mysterious new man named Henri moves in next door, to the house where Sera's best childhood friend lived. The best friend, Dee, disappeared suddenly along with her mother and brother when Sera was young. Nobody heard from them again. When arson leads to the discovery of a body at Henri's farm, the whole town starts talking. And when Dee and her brother, along with a little girl, suddenly appear with no explanation of where they've been all these years, what does that mean?

I loved the beautiful descriptions of the area's heat wave, drought, and fires. I could almost feel the heat, and it reminded me a bit of the setting in "The Dry" by Jane Harper. Fiction and mystery readers will enjoy this novel, but it's not a fast-paced thriller.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a big fan of psychological thrillers and this one was pretty good! I would say it's more of a mystery than a thriller. There were plenty of twists to keep you interested in the story. It was, at times, predictable but I still wanted to read more and more. I devoured this book in a day! This book would make the perfect beach read and was my first book by this author. I would definitely recommend this book to a friend and I cannot wait to read more from her!

The first book I've read by this author and this for me was more mystery than pyschological thriller. It was an OK read, enough to keep me interested.

"One hot summer, Dee disappeared. Now she’s back...but she’s not the girl you knew.

Sera and Dee were the best of friends.

Until the day that Dee and her brother Leo vanished from Sera’s life, during a long hot summer fifteen years ago.

Now Sera is an adult, with her own child, five-year-old Katie, and has returned to her childhood home after her husband’s death.

While she grieves, the past haunts Sera at every turn...and then Dee and Leo return to their small Hampshire village, along with Dee’s young daughter.

But Dee is silent and haunted by her demons; no longer the fun-loving girl that Sera loved. And when Sera uncovers the shocking secret that Dee is hiding, it’s clear that the girl she knew is long gone - and that the adult she has grown into might put all of them in danger..."

I'm in the middle of one hot summer... so this book is obviously meant to be read right now.

This one had so many twists and turns. It was definitely a roller coaster of a read. From the beginning, you want to root for Sera and Dee to rekindle their friendship once Dee and her brother Leo return from a long disappearance. Dee has changed though, and Sera cannot quite put her finger on it. She is quiet, removed, and overprotective of her daughter. Leo is also acting different which draws suspicion from Sera.
As the story unfolds, we start to realize the premise behind Leo and Dee's disappearance and that all is not as it appears on the surface. When Dee's daughter says something extremely odd to Sera one day, the whole truth unravels and we find out exactly who she really is.

The Darkest Summer by Ella Drummond introduces Sera and her daughter who have gone back to their hometown after the death of Sera's husband. This brings back memories of her best friend Dee, so imagine her surprise when Dee comes back into her life, a totally changed woman, and not in a good way. As soon as Dee enters the story, with her unusual little girl, I just had to find out what what was going on and get to the bottom of their secrets, and boy, did they have a lot! Just when I thought I had the answers, something else happened to put a spanner in the works. What secrets is her own mother hiding? Why did Dee disappear, all those years ago?

I liked the love interest Henri, who I was highly suspicious of myself. Yet non-judgemental Sera looked past his scars and reclusive behaviour in an effort to get to know the real guy that everyone else has already labelled as weird.

An absorbing mystery set during a sweltering hot summer. I could almost feel the heat dripping off me! A super read, with lots of plot twists with a murderous outcome I loved!

Thanks to Ella Drummond, NetGalley and Hera Books for an ARC of The Darkest Summer. This is my honest opinion.

This was an enthralling thriller, I was captivated from page one onwards! I didn't know what to anticipate because I haven't read Drummond's work before but I was pleasantly surprised and fully transported by reading this spell-binding story.

An unbelievable story of mayhem and secrets, of ambition and devastation, of desperation and escape. Ella Drummond has managed to capture the snapshots of all these emotions in the various chapters of the book.

The hottest summer caused a bedlam in Sera's life both in the past and the present. Best friends Dee and Sera were inseparable in 2003, but Dee and her family disappeared one summer night. Sera tried to find out but no luck. Life happened and decades later, Sera was back with her mother post her husband's death. And so was Dee along with her brother and a child. But the Dee of today was a changed woman holding back so many secrets.

The story caused the gentle waves of mystery and curiosity to pull me deeper into the ocean of confusion and murkiness where secrets transpired connecting both the past and present. Sera was beautifully etched, I liked her kindness to her best friend and to a stranger Henri with no judgements. I was in awe of her life where she lived in the midst of so many secrets, yet quite unaffected.

Then came my niggles, too many conversation breaks, just when the suspense was reaching the zenith, and weird reactions from some of the characters, diluted my interest too.

I rushed through the book to get to the secrets. And boy, they were so many. Many simply shocked me speechless. Murder and confusion and unexpected connections made this a quick, fun read.

After her husband dies, Sera has returned to hometown of Oakwold with her daughter. Her ideas of restful, healing days at her mom's house are quickly shattered when Sera's childhood friend, Dee, returns to Oakwold, along with her daughter and brother. Dee's entire family had disappeared abruptly in 2003. Sera is excited to see her old friend, but quickly learns that Dee has changed dramatically. There are many twists and turns in this book, making it a fun read! You will not figure out all of the secrets until the very end!

I usually start these reviews talking about the plot and then jumping into what I liked the most about the
story. This time I"m going to change it up a bit and talk about what I liked first. The wording! It was amazing it was like poetry in a novel. The author painted a very vivid picture of everything that was happening and everything that was in sight so well. I've never read anything quite like it before. This mystery will have readers talking about it for a long time to come. The book starts off with our main character returning to her home town with her daughter in tow after the death of her husband. Back in her old town she starts to be reminded of her
childhood best friend who vanished without a trace with her brother. That isn't the strangest part however, now low and behold both siblings have turned back up in Sera's life, however something is different about them and it is now up to Sera' to find out exactly what happened to her friend and try to protect her own family in the process. I wasn't a big fan of all of the characters I found it a little hard to keep track of who was who and what the relationship was between everyone. With everyone having their own secret it was really interesting
to see them all come to light and see how they connected. Not the easiest read but I enjoyed the idea of the story more than the actual story itself I think, just a few things that could have been worded a bit better .I did like all of the darkness and secrecy that this novel had it really kept the reader guessing. Really good job and I'm very glad I got the chance to check out this story.

I'd say this was a solid mystery. There was plenty of twists and turns and a multitude of secrets to be revealed. I enjoyed the steady pace of the book but I felt like there was too much going on and the story would jump from one timeframe to another so occasionally I would lose track a little.

Sera and Dee were the best of friends.

Until the day that Dee and her brother Leo vanished from Sera’s life, during a long hot summer thirty years ago.

Now Sera is an adult, with her own child, five-year-old Katie, and has returned to her childhood home after her husband’s death.

While she grieves, the past haunts Sera at every turn … and then Dee and Leo return to their small Hampshire village, along with Dee’s young daughter.

But Dee is silent and haunted by her demons; no longer the fun-loving girl that Sera loved. And when Sera uncovers the shocking secret that Dee is hiding, it’s clear that the girl she knew is long gone – and that the adult she has grown into might put all of them in danger…


This was just an okay read to me but what made me take my rating from 2 stars to 3 is because . there were quite a few secrets circulating which I actually did like but It had parts that I really didn’t connect with and at times moved a bit slowly and it jumped around too much for my taste..This is my first book by this author but I am definitely open to reading more from her.. Overall I gave it 3 stars

It’s hot and global warming sucks and besides people setting fire to any and everything, there’s murder afoot.
There’s always murder afoot.
Meet Sera, short for Seraphina, a widow and single mother to the darling Katie who lives in the small village of New Forest with her actress mother Mimi.
Sera is still of course mourning the death of her beloved husband Marcus and still settling in moving back in with her mother after the loss of him. Things are going fine until the fire up at the old farm across the way where the mysterious Frenchman, Henri lives and that is when everything becomes a bit too much for the village and for poor Sera.

I related to Sera a lot in a lot of ways. It seems that as soon as I find my groove in life some mischievous God or Goddesses pushes over a stone in my life that I need for balance and I’m topsy turvy for weeks. I felt she was the protagonist we all needed especially when her childhood friends Dee and Leo mysteriously come back into her life after completely vanishing into the night after 15 years.

This book was well written and had all of the right twists and turns up until the very end. It kept me wanting more and I could FEEL the heat. I’m experiencing it very much here in Pennsylvania. The author did a great job on conveying the scene and making me feel frazzled and reminisce on those childhood friends who I had in the past and one day just never saw again.

Thank you very much Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest and fair review. Please follow my blog for even more reviews:
https://aelilyreads.home.blog/

What is good in the book are most of the underlying mysteries. They are slowly revealed - maybe too slowly - but some are obvious whereas others were more carefully concealed. It's a very soap opera-esque type of story and if you like pulpy over the top drama then it's enjoyable, just don't expect it to all be believable (which you shouldn't anyway with that type of story). At least one mystery is given almost no attention and hastily dealt with at the end, in a way that was disappointing. I did want to keep reading to see what the heck was happening and how it all tied together, so that was good.

What's not so good here is the writing style. By page 3 it was apparent that this writing is not at all sophisticated. Dialogue was bizarre, the flow was clunky in many places, and there were many instances of Sera, the narrator, saying she felt one way and then half a page later saying the exact opposite. It felt sloppy.

Worse, there were way too many convenient plot devices. I can't even count how many times a dramatic reveal in a conversation was stopped because the people were interrupted by something silly. The conversation easily could have been re-instigated but that never happened. Sera overlooked obvious red flags right and left, people acted in ways totally inappropriate for their character just to forward the story, and some reveals were handled in a way that only the characters reactions to the reveal were actually written about. In one particularly ridiculous scene, several characters are almost killed in a forest fire behind Sera's home. Moments later, Sera is taking a leisurely shower and then pouring herself a drink while she enjoys her backyard, suddenly and inexplicably free from danger as the wind changed direction and the fire was no longer a problem. These constant shifts in tone and action were jarring.

I wanted to like this more than I did. The background, setting, and soap opera story line are fun and I was compelled to know the truth behind it all. Ultimately, however, the problems with the writing were more of a focal point for me than the plot, and were too distracting for me to fully enjoy this.

I love psychological thrillers, so when I read that this was a “totally gripping psychological thriller”, I knew it’d be right up my alley. Well...I have to say I was a little disappointed. It started out really well as the plot unfolded and the characters were introduced, but as soon as Dee and Leo showed up with the little girl, I felt like it all went downhill. The dialogue between the characters didn’t flow as easily as I would’ve liked and at times the characters came across as immature. The chapters about the mothers’ past, Mimi (Maureen) and Hazel, seemed almost misplaced for the majority of the story until everything was revealed at the end. Honestly, the only character I liked throughout the entirety of the book was Henri.

As far as this being a psychological thriller...I wouldn’t have categorized this book in that genre. It appeared to be more of a mystery to me, but with the story jumping all over the place and having unnecessary filler that didn’t add to the plot, it often didn’t keep my attention. I stuck it out until the end because I wanted to know what would happen, and while the secrets that were revealed were shocking at first, overall the book was a little underwhelming.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2881033004