Rachel Burton is fast becoming one of my favourite authors and this book only cements this opinion.

I loved the split timelines and how mysteries were slowly revealed as you progressed - so much so I was unable to put the book down.

Both Olivia and Alice are strong main characters, with equally engaging supporting characters.

A thoroughly good read.

The book was a love story on various levels. The love of a young couple , the love of grandparents raising a granddaughter, the love of a middle age couple experiencing some difficulties and the story of a woman who had to navigate her life to found out about her past. The book is also about secrets and how individuals make choices when they have secrets .

What a delightful read! Told in alternate timelines, this is a beautiful story that is is based on themes of love, grief, and family but is truly character driven. I found the story (especially that of Tristan and Alice) so engaging that I finished this in one day -- and I was sorry to see it end! Excellent writing and rich imagery coupled with well-developed and interesting characters made this a great read for me. I have not read anything by Rachel Burton before, but I look forward to checking out some of her other titles.

This book has a very distinct charm about it. The story-line is quite heavy: a granddaughter who has been lied to for most of her life, a daughter who has been left parentless, parents who first excommunicated than lost their offspring. Where can you get from here without endulging in black feelings and language? Yet, somehow, Rachel Burton manages to pull this off, and transports us to a place or rather places of whirlwind romance and beautiful childhood, and then to a crumbling inheritance of a young caring woman.

I liked the slow flow of the story, resembling life - taking its turns and different priorities, moods, but getting there... I also liked the two story-lines. I felt privy to a part of her parents and grandparents' lives, Olivia, the granddaughter, will never know. The whole story is beatifully written, thought-provoking yet soothing somehow. A lovely book indeed.

A lovely book about the directions our lives change and how we often come back full circle. I was captivated by Cambridge in the 1970s. Burton paints a vivid picture. The relationships are complex and multi-faceted and I loved the way they continually intertwined. It made the ending feel authentic. Hard to say my favourite part without revealing spoilers. Suffice it to say, there's a quote in here making it to my journal.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

1976. Alice Kenzie a coal miner’s daughter, is an undergraduate at Cambridge University and she bumps into PhD student Tristan Somers. Alice has always concentrated on her studies, she hasn’t been interested in dating and meeting Tristan changes her mind. Despite his parents disapproval Alice and Tristan marry and are expecting their first baby. When, Olivia is four months old Tristan is killed in a car accident and Alice is a widow at twenty three. Mary and Henry Somers offer to help Alice, she moves to Summer House in Suffolk and she starts to question if she’s capable of raising her daughter and providing what she needs?

2018. Olive Faulkner-Jones is married to Jacob and they have a teenage son Nicholas. When her grandmother Mary Somers passes away she’s devastated, she had such a wonderful childhood growing up at Summer House and being raised by her loving grandparents. She and Jacob start the horrible job of clearing out the old house, they find some old letters, Olivia was told her parents both died in the car accident and forty years later she discovers this isn't true.

A dual timeline historical fiction story that alternates between 1976 and 2018. Told from two women's points of view, and the narrative includes topics such as, living up to your parent’s expectations, postnatal depression, friendship, loyalty, death, estrangement and second chances!

I received a copy of The Secrets of Summer House by Rachel Burton from NetGalley and Head of Zeus publishing in exchange for an honest review, I felt sorry for Olivia, she was lied to her whole life, should she look for her mother, Alice might not want to see her and Olivia's putting her heart and future in the hands of a woman she doesn’t know and can she handle being rejected again? I love stories set in old houses, with long kept secrets and a touch of mystery and five stars from me.

A really beautiful and atmospheric book. It is sweeping and stunning and absolutely gorgeous. Loved it.

A romantic love story set in Cambridge, a house with a secret, a long lost mother and a story set over two timelines are a perfect combination for an emotional and engrossing read.
Olivia has always believed that both her parents tragically died together in an accident. It is only on the passing of her beloved grandmother that photographs, journals and a bundle of letters lead her to question her own upbringing and challenge everything she believed in. Taking her on a journey that spans the globe Olivia rediscovers herself and her family.
I enjoyed this book. It had a great story line and likeable characters. Perfect for a cosy evening.

Does understanding the past help us move forward with our future?

You’ll want to grab a cold drink before you start this one! It’s set in Cambridge during the long hot summer of 1976 and jumps ahead to 2003 and 2018. It’s a family mystery involving a long-kept secret and a bundle of old letters and centers around Summer House in rural Suffolk and Cambridge University Library.

Like the author, I often look at old homes and think about the voice of the past. If you are with me, you’ll often hear me say, “...if only those walls could talk…the secrets they’d share!” This was a special book about a fictitious estate, Tristan Somers’ family home, and the secrets held within its walls. It’s also about a girl making a difficult decision with few options.

In this atmospheric novel, author Rachel Burton explores grief, trust, mental health and abandonment. The characters are well-crafted and the struggles they work through and how they work through them are authentic. In fact, it’s rare to have a bookish relationship such as Olivia and Jacob’s and I applaud the author for taking this rarely trodden path. Well balanced emotionally with seamless dovetailed timelines between a mother and her daughter, this is a compelling read about the twists in one’s path and how we deal with them in order to move forward. You’ll be left reminded that judging without knowing the whole story is detrimental to both parties involved.

I was gifted this advance copy by Rachel Burton, Head of Zeus, Aria, and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

An emotional, atmospheric summer read about family secrets and loyalty. The storyline kept me glued to my Kindle through the whole book! I definitely recommend reading this book!

This was an enjoyable read!

I loved the setting of Summer House - I love historic houses with lots of stories and secrets to tell. There were plenty of nights I told myself one more chapter only to stay up late reading as pieces of the story were revealed - I just needed to know everything!

I enjoyed the time jumps between the two couples' stories and how they began to merge as we got closer to the present day.

The ending, however, was lackluster for me and felt almost rushed. We followed both Alice's and Olivia's stories and were invested in all the secrets unfolding that I wanted more out of the ending

Gosh I loved this book. Told in chapters between a mother and daughter. True love played a big part. All the characters were interesting . Summer House sounded amazing. I loved it. The ending was perfect and it was the kind of story you thought about till you could read next. I went to bed early so I could finish.

2 1/2 elevated to 3.

This is not a romance. It's a split time novel between Alice in 1976 and Olivia in 2018. Olivia is Alice's daughter and she was raised by her grandparents, who told her her parents died in a car accident.

After Olivia's grandmother dies and Olivia goes back to the home where she and her father were raised, she discovers her mother didn't actually die in the same accident that killed her father.

The present day narration in 3rd person POV present tense turned out to be very distant and hard to connect to.

I received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.

Like a lot of thing, life is not always what you planned it to be. Secrets are buried. Family can be toxic. This sad and wondrous tale highlights all these things. But resilience wins out with strength and hope.

Thank you Netgalley for this arc

This was a highly entertaining book. The characters were very likeable and you wanted to find out what happened .This was my best read of the year and actually sorry that it ended .

Geez, I don't even know what to say. Am really focusing on not spoiling things, though the book synopsis did that, but I edited below so potential readers are not. I think the cover promised a book packed with love and mystery and to me that meant more Gothic in nature. Unfortunately, that is not what I ended up with. The actual mystery was not very mysterious I thought. And I think that the author in the end let one of the characters we follow through this off the hook a bit too much. The flow between the two timelines did not work and the stories in both dragged forever. The way things tied up in the end just felt off to me too.

"The Secrets of Summer House" has us following two distinct timelines/women. In 1976, University Library, undergraduate Alice Kenzie has a straight up "meet-cute" with Tristan Somers. They fall in love, they get married, but something happens that ends up with Alice's daughter, Olivia, being left at Summer House. In 2018, Olivia Somers is dealing with the fact that her beloved grandmother has just died. Olivia is dealing with her husband being away in America. When she finds photos in her grandmother's study showing her parents' wedding, she realizes that her grandmother has hidden something from her, and then starts to investigate what happened to her mother/father decades earlier.

Alice and Tristan I really wanted to love. But there felt like so much stuff that was unsaid in those sections. We get hints and there via other characters in the Olivia sections what that was, but I really wish that it had been spelled out more. I always feel like people named Tristan are not long for this world. I don't think I have read about one in a book that had a happy ending. And now I am thinking about Legends of the Fall.

Back to the book. At least Alice's sections the characters were more developed. I got to see Mary, Henry, Stella, and everyone else and you get their points of view a lot more in those sections.

Olivia's chapters felt flat. I don't know why she felt so estranged from her husband. It felt like she kept making mountains out of molehills. I thought we were going to get some things about an affair or something, but nope. She just didn't tell him something. And Olivia's husband seemed to just be there to bring her cups of tea. I was more interested in Olivia's best friend Tash than her unraveling her parents (not so mysterious) past.

The writing was solid (hence the 3) but the flow was awful. I felt myself getting restless while I was reading. I really wanted to ask is this it when I getting to the meat of the story (at around the 65 percent mark). And then when you get the revelations I felt let down and just aggravated.

The setting of Summer House should have been played up more. I mean the house is the title of the book. It sounded very decrepit in the Olivia sections and stifling and hot in the Alice sections. If you play up a house in a book I think either Gothic mystery novel or haunted house a la Shirley Jackson. This was neither.

The ending just wrapped things up too neatly. I needed more.

I absolutely adored this book, from start to finish! I love a story full of family secrets, old houses and mystery and this book has all three in spades. I liked the way the two stories, on set in the 1970’s and the other in 2018, wove together perfectly to tell the stories of Alice and Tristan, Olivia and Jacob. I couldn’t wait to find out what was going on, why lies had been told and how the story would end. Beautifully written, lovely characters and a story full of live, secrets and heartbreak. Wonderful.

Great story that hooked me from the start.
This story is told between two time frames. But, the different perspectives lend themselves together to produce a story that flows smoothly. Olivia's Gran passes, and upon her death she received an envelope with pictures. Pictures that make her question everything she thought she knew about her past.
Loved the characters, flaws and all. Recommend this book, you will be glad you read it.
I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I wish to thank NetGalley and Head of Zeus, Aria Publishing for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. I have voluntarily read and reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book is a real treasure to read. It is the story of secrets untold, of loves and losses and healing all in one. All of the characters were beautifully crafted and the reader becomes deeply involved with each and every one based on their lives and decisions made. There are no villains or finger pointing. The physical descriptions of Summer House and all the settings are so beautifully described that the reader feels very much a part of the story. This is a multi-generational journey and I totally loved it from page one until the very end when I closed it and sighed. I highly recommend this book and especially this author. I will look for more of her books.

This was truly a beautiful story told in alternating timelines. Through it we get to know Olivia’s story and the love story of her parents against the backdrop of the Summer House. The imagery is rich in this story and character driven. And once I really started this story, it was difficult to put down until I finished it.

Thank you to the Author, Publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read, review and give my honest opinion of a complimentary ARC.