Although this book wasn’t for me, I can understand some people enjoying it. I found two of the main characters completely unbelievable and couldn’t get past the main premise of the book. I did find the setting of Cape Cod enjoyable, but I couldn’t buy into the main character being so completely clueless and naive. Really wanted to like this book - disappointing!

Communication within a family is so necessary and so very very difficult. Especially for the characters in this story. An in-depth tale of how families can go so wrong. Well put together story with difficult characters.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my review.

I am having a hard time rating and reviewing this book. It was a decent story, but somehow I feel that I have heard it before. It was a sort of mixup of several previous reads.

Ann and Poppy are the teenaged daughters of a couple of 60s hippies who are now school teachers and weird, but loving parents. Michael is a classmate of Ann's whose mother has recently died, leaving him parentless and homeless. When Ed and Carol Gordon learn about Michael's circumstances, they invite him to live with them, and soon make the decision to adopt him.

The Gordons own an old cottage on Cape Cod, where they visit every summer, and that is where the story actually happens. Ann is babysitting for a rich couple in a big house, Michael is working on their landscaping crew, and Poppy is surfing and getting stoned. Then an event takes place that changes everything. Although not guilty, Michael takes the blame and disappears. Ann stays with her parents and gives up her college scholarships, and Poppy just disappears.

Years later, while returning to Wisconsin from the Cape, Ed and Carol Gordon are killed in a head-on collision. Ann, as the only one reachable, declares herself executor of their estate and begins to get rid of her past, in an effort to erase it.

Nothing works out as Ann has planned and in the end everyone lives happily ever after.

The book opens with Ann, an attorney and single mom living in Boston, meeting with a realtor to initiate the sale of her family’s rustic cottage on Cape Cod. Ann and her sister Poppy inherited the cottage when their aging parents were killed in a car accident. Poppy fell in love with surfing on the Cape and built an itinerant life focused on practicing/teaching yoga and chasing big waves. In flashbacks, it is revealed that they also have an adopted brother named Michael who shares the inheritance. Most of the book focuses on one quietly explosive Cape Cod summer when Ann, Poppy and Michael shifted from childhood and became adults. The events of that summer changed all of their lives drastically. Will returning to their second home on the Cape help them heal?

I received an ARC of The Second Home in exchange for an honest review. This is a family saga that centers around a summer home that has been in the family for generations. One fateful summer, things happen that change the dynamics of the family, which was heading for changes anyway. Lies and secrets contribute to the misunderstandings taking place in the family. This is an excellent beach read, especially since it centers around a beach community. Nice quick read.

So loved the setting of this read as I spent several weeks every summer vacationing on the Cape as a child and then again as an adult, within a 5 minute walk of the Beachcomber in Wellfleet. So many memories flooded my brain as restaurants etc. were mentioned. It really was an incredible place to visit.
Love to read books about families and their high and low tides getting in the way of their relationships. I loved the parents, but have to say most of the rest seemed one dimensional much of the time. Michael seemed more developed as a character and I found myself cheering for him on many occasions. I did enjoy reading about Poppy surfing as I don’t know much about it and found it very interesting. Found the dynamics between Ann and Maureen difficult to fathom.
An enjoyable read that held my interest until the very end. Many thanks to Christina Clancy, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for affording me the opportunity to read this ARC , to be published in June of 2020. Three and a half stars.

When I picked up this book to read it the description intrigued me. I thought it sounded interested.

What I wasn't prepared for was how much I was going to get invested in the story and characters.

The story starts with Ann one of the Gordon kids. Through her, we get introduced to Michael and Poppy. From the beginning, you are sucked into the Gordon family and the secrets they have but also the love and family connection.

As the story unfolds alternating from past to present through each character you begin to see the story unfold from multiple points of view which were really fun. You got to see how each choice made by a family member affected the others.

Christine writes a beautiful story about family, love, and finding your way back, She also takes us a journey through heartbreak, tragedy, and unspeakable acts of darkness. She wrote in a way that I felt Gordon's pain, love, happiness, sadness, anger and eventually forgiveness. It was truly a wonderful journey that I would take again and again.

Not an original story.

The first half of this novel explores the relationships between two sisters, an adopted brother, and the parents. The setting is the summer home in the Cape.

Nothing about this book is novel or original. The first half was especially clichéd, and the second half was a maudlin acceptance. The writing is good. The characters and plot are fleshed out. However, it’s a story that’s been told thousands of times. Nothing new to read here.

Thank you to Christina Clancy, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC.

This was a great family drama, written by my new favorite author. The only thing I didn't like was the ending between Michael and Ann. Other than that, it was an entertaining read.

I received this ARC in exchange for my honest review. I hate that I waited so long to start this book. This was a great story of family, traditions, love, miscommunication, sexual assault and forgiveness. I enjoyed this novel and loved most of the characters. This book was well written, you could truly feel the emotion being experienced by the characters. . I definitely enjoyed how characters that were known to the siblings when they were children came back into the story during their adulthood.

If you like a good story about family drama this book is for you! Thank you to the author for giving me the opportunity to read this book, I will definitely be seeking more books by this author.

This novel, The Second Home, was an amazing read. I don’t think I have ever felt so many different emotions for one novel: love, hate, sorrow, and joy. And all done with such intrigue that I was speed reading one minute and then slowing, then speeding up again and again. My heart raced, I cried, I rejoiced, it was just a phenomenal book to read. The characters were well developed, the story line never dragged or got boring, everything flowed.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read this ARC. This book was given to me for free for my honest review.

This was a great book for those who love a romantic story. The “second home” was described so well that I could picture it in my mind. Such great detail.

In Catherine Clancy’s debut novel, The Second Home, she gives us the idyllic setting of a summer retreat: Cape Cod, where else? With her descriptive prose, you don’t have to do much to imagine days and evenings filled with oysters, Lilly Pulitzer, and sandy beaches. The family at the center of the book, the Gordons, are, at first glimpse, a solid unit, with parents who could best be described as “such good people.” They open their home to a classmate of their daughters’, a young man who has been orphaned. As the story progresses, a number of plot twists (along with those that are to be expected when children grow up) shake the family’s seemingly perfect foundation. While the characters were initially promising, Poppy and Ann felt increasingly one-dimensional and predictable in the latter half of the book. About a 3.25 for me—a solid book for the beach. I look forward to reading more by Christina Clancy, and I’m very grateful to her (along with NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press) for allowing me the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.

Just a nice relaxed summer read. Has everything you would want for the genre. Nice writing style and a good flow to the story

I did enjoy this book but the characters fell a little short for me. I was intrigued enough to finish the story and did enjoy the book. I'd recommend it just with a note that there is a bit of a slower pace with development needed, give it a chance!

Christina Clancy's The Second Home explores the many layers of family love and conflict. The story moves back and forth between the late 90s and present day following the Gordon family as they spend their summers on Cape Cod in the family home that's been passed down for generations. During one particular summer a secret rips the family apart and creates fissures that ripple throughout the rest of the book. The chapters alternate perspectives between the three children giving the reader tremendous insight into the motivations and inner turmoil of each character. I found myself very frustrated with the main characters Ann and Michael as it seemed to me that they both were too quick to believe the worst about each other. That frustration compelled me to keep reading however so I suppose it was an effective plot device. Overall this book examines the love of family and the resilience of family connections through trauma and grief. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the review copy.

Solid beach read or those looking for family oriented fiction. No surprises but very readable and likeable characters.

Two sisters decide to sell their family's summer home after their parents pass away; until their adopted brother shows up.

Michael is ready to set the record straight about that summer years ago.

Compassionate & Heartbreaking!!

Each summer, the Gordon family packs up the car and heads from Wisconsin to an old family home on the Cape. But one summer changes everything. Sisters Ann and Poppy grow apart as Ann becomes closer with the family for whom she is a babysitter. Poppy falls in with a new group of friends (for better or worse). And their newly adopted brother Michael is just struggling to figure out where he fits in -- especially with his "sister" Ann.

That summer leads to more than 15 years of secrets, lies, and festering resentment.

Circumstances force these siblings -- now strangers -- back together to reconsider that summer and their feelings about each other and their second home.

The story had a couple twists that kept me interested and separated it a bit from all the other books about houses on the Cape (of which there are many). I wanted to keep reading to see how it all worked out. It was fairly fast-paced and had a few rather poignant moments, particularly those moments that included siblings' parents, Ed and Connie.

There also were frustrating moments. This was another book where I felt like screaming, "Just talk to each other!" When resolution comes, it was almost too quick and felt lacking. There was a lot of angst, some of it understandable, but some of it was a tad over the top. Also, because of how time passes in this book, I feel like I missed seeing some of the character growth.

I would recommend this book for anyone looking for a beach read and anyone interested in family dynamics.

Currently classified on Amazon as Family Life Fiction and Coming of Age Fiction, this debut novel is a family drama that meshes the soul of Cape Cod with the heart of a family. The family’s salt box cottage on the Outer Cape bears witness to the struggles of the current Gordon family, as it has stood strong for other generations who came to this world of ocean, sand, and scrub pines.

The cover of the book is eye-appealing and enticing. Three young people, who must be the three siblings in the book are together, yet separate. The title of the book could have been “The Summer Cottage”, “The Vacation Place, or even “WellFleet”, but “The Second Home” is the only title it could be - this truly was a sheltering ‘home’, the place you go back to when you have nowhere else to go.

So, we have the perfect title and cover. What’s inside? First, the word pictures of Cape Cod are the best I have read (and Cape Cod is a popular setting for books). Second, the gentle wit and fresh use of words is appealing. Third, this story of a family united by so much, yet pulled apart in a moment is readable and compelling, like the constant ebb and flow of the tide.

In many ways this is a 5-star book, but for me, it was a bit long and slow in places. Some reviewers have called this book the perfect summer beach read, but I’m not so sure. Dark, tragic, evocative, this is a book to be read in late February, as the hope of spring begins to nudge winter away. Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance review copy. This is my honest review.