I only gave this book 3 stars because I felt that the author just went on and on and I guess I wanted her to get to the point of the story. I wanted to like the main characters but Ann and Poppy were selfish and self centered and I can't buy that it took them so long to come together and talk out their problems. Ok read.

The Second Home is a very entertaining novel involving three siblings who drift apart until circumstances bring them back together years later. Each of the siblings has an interesting backstory and appealing presence. The author helps us to get to know them by alternating episodes. Naturally, given the title, a second home is at the center of the story. The plot kept me reading to the end.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this book. It is well written, has interesting characters, and the story moves along at a good pace. It made me want to keep reading more and delving into the story of this family, who live relatively ordinary lives in Wisconsin and vacation at their summer home on Cape Cod. Most of the story happens in the summer, hence making this house quite important to the family. However, a series of circumstances conspire to make the sisters want to sell the house and all its memories and move on with their lives. Fortunately, due to complications and revelations about past secrets, the house was never sold. The story did make me think, do we ever escape our past and does getting rid of material things that remind us of the past really help?

Great premise and well-written details of a complex family structure involving two biological daughters and an adopted (teenage) son. The setting of the beach community was rich with detail as well. However, the one thing that kept me from really investing in the story was the creepiness of the male characters - one who who seduces his babysitter and the other who introduces a young surfer into a world of drugs. They were both cliche and unnatural at the same time. Not sure how to explain it, but I just couldn't get into their storyline. Other than that, the author did a nice job.

Enjoyable book that maybe could have been a little stronger.This revolves around some long-standing family drama, told from multiple points of view---which always makes it interesting. This is debut novel, so I'm sure there will be more good novels to come. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-arch in exchange for an honest review.

The book description released by the publisher is a great summary of the story line. The Gordon family is loving yet dysfunctional, unique yet ordinary. I didn’t really love any of the characters, though, and felt annoyed by some of their antics and sins of commission and omission. The last chapter also seemed to be forced and tried quickly to address the wrongs and unite the family once and for all. That being said, it was an easy read and would be a perfect summer beach novel.

The Second Home by Christina Clancy is a good family drama. It takes place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Cape Cod. The writing about Milwaukee and Cape Code were very descriptive and it felt like you were there. I am familiar enough with Milwaukee to know the places the author described and she makes me want to visit Cape Cod.

The main characters were likeable and I was able to sympathize with them. However, at times I wanted to hit them and say wake up. I suppose this and bad decisions go along with teens and growing up. However, bad decision making goes on into their adult life.

The book does fail to develop some story lines that could have been interesting and the ending did seem a bit rushed to tie the story into a neat bow. It is a good debut and I will think about Ann, Poppy, and Michael for a while.

Thank you to #Netgalley for an advanced readers copy of this book for an honest review.

Book Review: The Second Home by Christina Clancy

A second home on the coast that has been in the family for years. The three children who live there and how they’re lives are completely changed after one fateful summer there.

This was a story about family, love and healing. There was a good amount of emotion in this story. I teared up several times reading this and just FELT so much for these people about what was happening in their lives. There was one point in the story that I got so upset with something happening in the storyline that I had to put the book down and walk away. It was so easy to become emotionally invested in there characters! And the way the second home in Wellfleet was described made me wish I had a house like that too!

Really enjoyed this book and gave it 4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!

I don’t think this book was a good fit for me. Although, at first the story was intriguing, I found parts of it that didn’t add up or went unexplained. I had a hard time getting through this one and I really wanted to love it. It just fell short for me personally. I did enjoy the family dynamics, and the raw story that takes place after the death of the parents.

I can't remember the last time I read a book with such a strong sense of place. Christina Clancy doesn't just write about Cape Cod: she gives you Cape Cod in all it's glory. The self-centeredness of the tourists and the newer home owners; the reverse snobbery of the long-time home owners; the frustration of the locals; the amazing scenic contrasts of the Cape itself: it's all there, and so is the reader, throughout the novel. Telling a story that happens as many times and in as many ways as there are families (the falling-out of three siblings, the death of their parents, and the sorting out of the estate), The Second Home asks questions common to all of us. What does it really mean to be a sibling? How does it happen that those who loved each other fiercely as children can be barely civil as adults? How do persons reconcile after years apart? What do family members owe to each other if they are to be a family? Exploring the answers to these questions with each adult member of the Gordon family against the backdrop of their family's homes and the events of a brutally hard Summer on the Cape, Clancy creates a wonderful read with an unexpected resolution.

A word of warning: this novel contains a sexual assault and references to that event.

I wasn't sure how I felt about this book as I read thru it. I was engaged and yet for some reason resistant to it. Not sure how to explain it. I didn't love all of the drug use and how non-chalant and okay that was, so maybe that is where the resistance came from? The two homes were well portrayed I thought and very much portrayed how many people have two homes like this. I didn't really connect to any of the characters on a strong level and yet I wanted to find out how it all played out.

What a book. Most families have deep dark secrets. It took me a while to get into the book because I wasn't fond of any of the characters but one I got past that I enjoyed the book even though it was little choppy at first.

What a fantastic book! The body of the book starts out as kind of a mellow summer at the Cape story, but it quickly moves to a gripping story line which makes you sad and extremely angry on behalf of the characters. The characters all were flawed to various degrees, although even some of their most unattractive behaviors were understandable given how they were manipulated when they were young and vulnerable. I found that I did care about all of them and that each of the three main characters were fully developed. The transitions between their stories and the different time periods were smooth, with small reveals along the way filled in later to make a multi-layered and satisfying narrative.

The only thing I might have liked changed would be to have eliminated the prologue. As it turned out, I wasn't fully engaged at that point and there was a gap in time between when I started and when I got to the body of the book, so I didn't really remember what it had said. When I went back and reread it at the end, though, I felt that it revealed too much too early, so I was glad that I had forgotten it.

In any case, I really loved this book and highly recommend it. Many thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for an advance e-copy of the book.

The Second Home is an impressive debut novel by Christina Clancy. The Gordon family from Wisconsin has a summer home on the Cape in New England. The first summer they spend on the Cape with their newly adopted teenage son, and two biological daughters, turns out to be a disaster. The seemingly perfect family is split apart because everyone has secrets they are hiding to protect other members of the family. The story of what happened and how it affected the family is told by the three children. A tragedy years later brings the children back together.

Ms. Clancy does an excellent job writing about the emotions of the family members and how the events of that one summer changed everyone’s lives. I look forward to more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance ebook.

I seem to be in the minority of people who had trouble reading this book. To me there were too many times when I wanted to ask why the characters didn't just communicate. Or how did the parents not notice or intervene at crucial moments. The characters just seemed so illogical to me. They assumed too quickly, gave up too easily, and didn't have normal relationships with anyone. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC. It was an interesting read.

This was a good read. It deals with families and loyalties and lies. The kindness of a family leads to conflict and complications. When daughter Ann discovers, Michael, alone and parentless, she brings him home and he is adopted by her own loving, kooky parents. But, the first complication is that Michael cannot feel brotherly love, rather a much more romantic and sexual longing.

The family spends summers in their decrepit house on Cape Cod. Seeking extra money for college, Ann takes a babysitting job; and thereby hangs this tale. Violence, lies and death follow her. As a reader, I liked the characters and admired the loving family at the start but was saddened by the what ensued.

I really enjoyed the novel and I am always pleased when an author is able to pull all the threads together and lead to a satisfying closure.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read this book.

Thanks, NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this author's debut work.

The Gordons, originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, parents are Ed and Connie, with their teen daughters, Ann and Poppy, and their adopted son, Michael. They vacation every year at their summer home on the island of Cape Cod, Massachusetts in a saltbox style summer home. Something tragic happened to Ann on the island 15 years ago, and it causes the close nit family to become estranged. Now another tragedy has taken place, can the family come together again?

The writing is descriptive and thorough, you can picture the scene unfolding in your mind's eye, however, it can be tedious at times. Overall would highly recommend this book.

This was a beautiful story about family relationships and all the connections to the family’s summer home on Cape Cod, The Second Home. When three siblings reconnect to settle the estate, things don’t go according to plan. I thoroughly enjoyed this story and found myself cheering for the main characters.
Thank you to St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC.

I have been trudging through this for a couple days, and I really really wanted to quit. I love a good book filled with family drama, but for some reason this rubbed me all of the wrong ways. I gave it a middle rating because I can't say what was wrong with it, I feel like I should have liked it, but I just didn't.

Ann, Poppy, and their late adopted brother Michael spend their summers in Cape Cod with their family. In part one their traditional summer vacation finds itself filled with distant relationships, and raging teenage hormones leading to devastating consequences, and broken relationships.

Part two takes place fifteen years later and the siblings find themselves (after so so much drama) back together trying to mend those broken relationships and battling over that home that bonded them all at one point.

I feel like there was so much packed into part two especially. There's blackmail, abuse, rape, trauma, and more. All of the elements of a great book, that just didn't work for me. I didn't love any of the characters, and I was left with a meh feeling at the end. Thank you to @netgalley for the opportunity to review this release early. I seem to be in the minority so perhaps give it a shot if you like a good family saga. It hits shelves June 2nd, 2020.

I read this as an ARC from netgalley.com. Thank you for the opportunity. I gave it 3 stars and 3.5 would be more accurate. This is a family drama which I enjoy, but isn’t my favorite genre. There is plenty of dysfunction here with characters storming off to near and far locations to nurse their wounds. However, my beagle could have found Michael, the young man Ann persuades her family to adopt, in 24 hours. The parents are portrayed as loving people who work hard at good jobs. They are approachable and hold back on judging their children, but the struggles faced by Ann and her sister seem like news to them. The children have all built walls around themselves in the presumption that they are not ‘good enough”. And in doing so and as would be expected, there is little productive communication. The twist is very contrived, but you just roll your eyes and keep reading, hoping for a really satisfying ending. A good enough read, but not a “must read” by any means.