After tragically losing his father, a boxer, after an injury, and his heroine-addicted mother to AIDS, teenager Michael Davis resigns himself to a depressing future. He’s both surprised and elated when the Gordons—liberal Ed and Connie, along with teens Ann and Poppy—announce they want to adopt him.

The family spends an idyllic summer together at the Gordon family beach house on Cape Cod, but by the following year, the ties between them are fraying. With her parents busy with lawyer’s meetings and court appearances related to the adoption, Poppy feels overlooked, and Ann and Michael try to ignore their burgeoning attraction to each other.

Ann busies herself babysitting for the Shaws, a wealthy family living in an ostentatious mansion, Poppy starts surfing with a group of locals, and Michael begins a landscaping job while Ed and Connie are unaware of the simmering tensions beneath the surface. Unaware, that is, until a tragic evening and subsequent misunderstandings lead to an abrupt departure from the Cape and point everyone’s life in a new direction. Soon, Michael leaves the family that adopted him while Poppy begins an itinerant lifestyle chasing waves and seeking spiritual solace.

Fifteen years later, Ed and Connie die in a car accident, leaving Ann to deal with the aftermath. Unable to find a will, she names herself executor and decides to sell her parents’ two houses so she and Poppy can split the proceeds. Before they can list the Cape house, though, Michael reappears in their lives, pressing his claim to the house as a legitimate heir of Ed and Connie. The unresolved tensions and betrayals of the long-ago summer return to the fore—and the beach house might be the very thing that can hold them together, for force them apart forever.

The Second Home powerfully evoked Cape Cod in a way that made me want to travel there immediately. I was lucky to spend a week there a long time ago, but it was so long, I don’t remember it well. I wish I had taken advantage of all the beauty Clancy describes!

The characters were generally well-sketched, and although Poppy had her issues, I really enjoyed her. Ann was more of a conundrum to me, and it was hard for me to understand Michael’s attraction to her. Others, such as Brad and Carol, and even Ed and Connie to some extent, seemed a little too flawless, and I might have liked to see a bit more range.

The book was emotional, at times difficult: I found it particularly hard to see how teenagers can be their own worst enemies. At one point, I just cried and cried. Though the book describes loss in many forms, it also shows the strength of the bonds of the families we are born with and that we make and the connections to place and how nourishing that can be.

I did not enjoy this book like I had hoped to. There is much in the story that is implausible that I cannot see the heart of the point the author was trying to make. By the halfway point I was bothered by where the story had gone. I was disturbed and uncomfortable. I pushed through and finished the book to see how the author would fix things within the story, how she would bring things together in the end. And the ending left me dissatisfied, as all of the characters growth had reversed except for Poppy.

I guess I’d call this a family drama. A few complex characters, some complicated issues that mess up the family for years. And then the siblings come back together after the parent’s death to the old house on Cape Cod to try to settle everything. Lots of drama and misunderstandings, but eventually they work things out. Good debut for this author.

Wow, was this book heavy.

This is not a light summer read, but still would make a good beach read. It's so easy to get swept up into this family's life and fall in love with them all. It's frustrating to see how everything falls apart, but I loved (though I was a little confused by) the ending. I'm also a sucker for anything set in Cape Cod, even though I've never been there, so that just adds to the charm of this book.

I recommend this for anyone who is looking for a good family drama as a summer read.

The Second Home is a beautiful, powerful debut about family and home. Three siblings, torn apart by years old secrets, are trying to deal with their grief over their parents deaths, the sale of the second family home on Cape Cod, and determining who they are as a family without their parents.

I loved this story which is part romance, part mystery and mostly family drama. Michael, Ann and Poppy are endearing, real and relatable. They came alive on the page for me and I felt like part of their family. I’m sad that it’s over because I want to know more about them and what happens next.

If you loved Summer of 69 by Elin Hilderbrand, you should pick this one up today!

That wasn't without flaws, but it was a beautiful story and one I'm glad to have read!

I'm not going to do a really long blog review for this one, but since I received it from Netgalley, I'll sprinkle some thoughts here.

I really loved the first half, but found the transition from it to the second was a little rushed, maybe forced. The second half wasn't as interesting until the whole family was reunited at the end and then it made me tear up just a little.

This isn't the cute and sweet story I had hoped for. It's incredibly hard to read at times, especially during the graphic rape scene, and with the ultimate falling apart of their family. However, it's a beautiful story of forgiveness and love and family (blood or not) that I think is quite important. It's raw and real and I really appreciated that.

Moreover, it's also incredibly well-written. Everything feels so authentic and real and I know part of that comes from the author's personal experiences with a "second home," but also probably from innate writing skills.

But anyway, I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

-Book Hugger

Reserve a day to read Christina Clancy's The Second Home because it is very difficult to put down. Clancy tells the story of a Wisconsin family and their beloved summer home on Outer Cape Cod. The parents are laid back teachers and the children, Ann, Poppy and Michael, are in High School. Michael is the same grade as Ann and he has been recently adopted by the family. Ann and Michael may have more than familial feelings for each other. Summers at the Cape are magical until one summer that changes all of their lives. Clancy's characters are fascinating and her writing is clear and expressive. She uses these skills to make the reader invested in the outcome of her story. A great book to come home to.

A summer in Cape Code at their summer home changes the Gordon’s lives forever. Ann Gordon, a seventeen-year-old, returns to her Midwest home with a secret that causes a rift between her sister, Poppy, and their adopted brother, Michael. Fifteen years later, Ann’s parents tragically die, and Ann and Poppy must decide how to handle the estate, specifically what to do with the second home in Wellfleet. Once they agree to sell the property, Michael re-enters their lives with a legitimate claim to the home, which he wants. More than the home, he wants to correct the misunderstandings that transformed the trajectory of all their lives during that fateful summer.

Written with compassion, wit, and a deep understanding of bonds that cannot be broken, this coming of age and family saga hybrid is the perfect read for family vacations this summer. To say it’s the perfect summer read is not to say it is light or fluffy because it has immense depth. Rather, Clancy captures the sand-in-your-toes, formative vacations at the family’s summer home that has quirks and smells and is a tangible representation of family. When the Gordon’s arrive for summer vacation, none of them anticipate how much each member of the family will change by the end, and Clancy masterfully depicts how trauma affects relationships and undermines the trust we have in others. I felt a range of emotions during this story but ultimately felt grateful to have gone on the journey with the Gordon family. I enjoyed the alternating perspectives – Ann’s, Poppy’s, and Michael’s – because it showed how two people can experience something so differently that it has long-term effects on their understanding of the world and the situation.

This novel contained multiple twists that I wasn’t expecting, and I appreciated the care with which Clancy told the story and how authentic the experience felt. When I finished this, I felt peaceful, like I’d just returned to my family’s cabin after a long day in the sun and sand. I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys summer reads with depth, family sagas, and coming of age stories.

A serviceable beach read especially for New Englanders. Well-drawn family dynamics and plenty of emotional tension. Somewhat far fetched but, hey, what do you want in your summer reading?

I received an ARC from NetGalley for an honest review. In the acknowledgment, in the end, the author wrote people kept telling him to write what he knows and he told us this story. The book was like the ocean, it flowed like it. You have the highs and lows, and the weather affects the ocean with its rough waves and its calm waves. This is what I thought as I read the book. The author told the story of a family with 3 siblings and the life they had. A lot of things happened and they each had their own personality. The story tells of the three together, then how they separated and what happened when they met after years of separation.
Poppy was a free spirit and I loved reading about her adventures. Ann was a serious person and seemed angry and Michael was for me just Michael. He just seemed to know what he should do even when life was so rough.
Parts of this story made me sad, parts had me excited and parts like the end of the story gave me hope that this author would continue his story.
There is just something about the way she writes that makes me feel like I am at the Atlantic Ocean and this story flows just like the ocean is. I hope you read this book and fall in love with the story and the people like I did. Thank you, Christina Clancy, for writing it and NetGalley for the ARC.

#bookreview ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5 stars

I absolutely loved this book! Congrats on an AMAZING debut novel @clancychristi 🥳❤️ I thought the writing was phenomenal and I fell in love with the characters and their complicated lives. I was hooked right from the first chapter until the very last sentence. I finished the book with a smile on my face but the book hangover will kick in any minute now. I highly recommend checking out this book (out now). I can’t wait to read more books from this author in the future! 🤞🏻

Thank you to the publisher and @netgalley for providing a free advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved it! It was a little slow moving at the beginning but the story is truly precious and captivating!
If you love family saga this is a very good book! I will look forward to reading next novels from Christina Clancy!!!

Thanks to NetGalley and St.Martin Press for the ARC in change of my honest review!

I loved this book. A multi dimensional family saga that was so engaging. When I first read the synopsis of the book I thought maybe it would be a good beach read. This is a dark subject matter and I would not classify it as a summer beach read.

That being said it was still a page turner and it was a little predictable but it was handled and written very well. This was a solid 4 star for me. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the early copy in exchange for an honest opinion.

I found this to be an interesting story of a family who had two daughters and adopted an orphan teenage boy Ed Gordon met at the school where he taught. The family goes to the Cape for the summer every year in a cottage that had been in the Gordon family through several generations The last summer they were all together was tough on everyone. That year the family seemed to split apart and go their separate ways.
Now fifteen years later the parents have died in a car accident and the oldest daughter Ann just wants to sell everything. Poppy wants to keep the Cape house and no one knows what happened to Michael.
The story looks at the years through the eyes of Poppy, Michael and Ann. Not always seeing things the same way. Can they get past the past and move on with life? That is the question.

This was an alright novel, but I find myself wishing more had happened. It started out intriguing and fizzled towards the end.

Okay, I like a good family drama with lots of secrets as well as the next person, but there's just one problem - I can only stretch my ability to overlook the implausible and unbelievable so far. The Second Home surpassed that in the first half, which left a whole other half a book to get through without rolling my eyes completely out of my head. Seriously, it reached a point that I started thinking about the many times my mother told me they would get stuck that way. It's a good thing that's not true! I realize that I'm in the minority here, and this book has received a great many glowing reviews, so I'm not going to go into the many problems I had with this book in detail because they would certainly be considered spoilers. It is safe to say that the problems were many. The story does get dark, but it just pushes too far for me to get invested in either the characters or their goings-on.

This novel had a bit of a slow start but picked up around the 25% mark. The story is centered around two sisters Ann and Poppy and their adopted brother Michael. Every summer growing up their parents would take them to their summer home in Cape Cod. One summer at the Cape, a set of events unfold unto which the two sisters spend years never making a return visit. After the tragic passing of their parents the siblings are forced out of their normal lives and back to deal with the sale of the house and find out what really happened that tragic summer.

While I did not feel myself totally connected to the characters and the plot did have some loopholes, I still found this to be a decent novel and found myself flipping the pages rapidly to see what happened. As this is Christina Clancy’s debut novel, I am excited to read her next novel.

Big thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read an early copy of this book!

I have already posted my review on Goodreads.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This is not the kind of book I typically read, but it drew me in with its description of a family with some pretty big issues. I have never been close to my siblings, so I figured I would be able relate. It was not what I was expecting at all, but it was amazing. The relationships between the characters were flawed and so real. And although I didn’t relate in the ways I thought I would, it was amazing. I absolutely recommend it.

The Second Home is the story of the Gordon family and how the events that unfold in their summer home on Cape Cod in the late 1990s impact the next 20 years of their lives. 

Ed and Connie Gordon and their three children - pretty, popular Ann, free spirit Poppy, and their adoptive son Michael arrive on the upper cape for a summer of escape, but what unfolds over that summer and the next leave the family fractured.  

Years later after the death of their parents, Ann and Poppy return to the house on the cape to prepare the house for sale.  But when Michael turns back up with a claim as an heir, the secrets and legacy of that long-ago summer will demand to be confronted and leave the three siblings lives changed forever again. 

I enjoyed The Second Home; it reads as family drama with some heavier elements and reflects how much failure to communicate can doom familial relationships.  3.5 stars - I found Christina Clancy's writing easy to read but found several of the characters to be a bit too pigeonholed and would've preferred if they had been more nuanced.

What a great story! This is about a family with very diverse personalities. Course if you’ve had teenagers, you know their personalities can change daily. How much fun would it be to have a beach house? In this story we see how family members can drift apart, think the worse of each other and still try to do what is best for the other person. I loved seeing how Ann, Poppy, and Michael grow and deal with what life gives them. Course I believed it helped to have Connie and Ed as role models, but even they had a few surprises up their sleeves. I would love to make another trip to Wellfleet to see how everyone is doing. I received the book from NetGalley, but my opinion is my own.