Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for an early copy of this book. I love a good Irish novel and I thought this was really cute! Loved the setting and the Irish man showing this girl around was adorable. The banter was great and I found the characters likable. This got a little too repetitive for me and I didn’t love the characters. Overall this was cute and fun!

An Irish Summer, was a quick summer. While cute at time, I will say I felt Chelsea could be unbearable at time. Colin, was book boyfriend you could definitely fall for. This book had me wishing for summer vacation in Ireland.

3.5 stars

“Temporary, maybe, but as the benefits began to outweigh the drawbacks, the decision was clear as day. I was moving to Ireland.”

Chelsea has just discovered the bed and breakfast she works for is being sold and she is now out of a job and a place to live. One minute she was hoping for a promotion the next she is being handed a pamphlet for a sister location in Galway, Ireland. With no other plans she makes the reluctant decision to go to Ireland for a summer position.

Chelsea was in no way prepared for a summer in Ireland. Once she arrived she was planning her return to the States. This was just going to be a blip on her résumé before her real life restarted. However, she never expected to meet her new coworker Collin Finegan nor anticipated his mission to make her fall in love with Ireland.

“Focus on the easy part. Life is already so hard. If you have something easy, you should enjoy it.”

I loved this story so much. I went to Galway when I was little and hearing about all the places Collin was taking Chelsea reminded me so much of my trip there. It was such a cute love story and now I’m dying to go back!

Really sweet story about finding one’s self and trusting the journey. I loved the friends and adventures along the way.
Easy storyline to follow and the characters were charming.

Brb buying a plane ticket to Ireland!!

Chelsea works at a B&B in Boston and when the owners decide to sell it, she takes them up on an offer to go work at a sister hostel in Ireland for the summer. Chelsea arrives in Ireland and is dead set on making sure that this is only a summer job and that she will return to Boston once the summer is over. However, the hostile, the people, the culture, and a certain boy slowly start growing on her and are making her second if Boston is really want she wants.

Chelsea was so relatable. She’s like any girl in their 20s, as we are all set to have an identity crisis at least once before we turn 30. Shes such a negative Nancy when she gets to Ireland, but Collin is dead set on making her fall in love with Ireland. And I LOVE thought about Collin - He is so passionate about Ireland and their culture and he just wants to share it with everyone. He has the biggest heart and always just wanted what was best for Chelsea, regardless of if it was with him in Ireland or not. Like what he did at the end??? I swoooon. All of the side characters were really great too, like Flo was my girl!!!! And Ada was definitely the friend that Chelsea needed to help her figure out what she wanted in life and help push her to go after it.

I really enjoyed the pacing and the writing style of this book. Something was missing, which is why I gave it four stars instead of five. I think I would’ve loved to see maybe dual POV, as Collin fell so fast for Chelsea. I usually love when the guy slowly falls for her - I rarely like insta-love when it comes from the guy’s side. But this was still such a great summer read!!

I was provided an ARC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

Chelsea made me so angry as she wasted her opportunity to explore Ireland during her summer abroad. I have always wanted to visit Ireland, my great grandparents on both sides of my family immigrated from Ireland and I would love to visit one day. I hope to get there someday and get to experience some of the magic the country has to offer.

This follows Chelsea, who has her future all mapped out. She has a comfortable job working at a cozy bed and breakfast, but when the couple she works for unexpectedly decide to retire and sell the property all of her plans some to a screeching halt. As a consolation, the couple offer Chelsea and opportunity to work at their sister property The Wanderer, a hostel in Ireland. This will give her the summer to figure things out. Chelsea is not thrilled with this opportunity, she likes plans and order and is not a fan of change. Encouraged by her more spontaneous best friend and her parents to take a chance on Ireland, she takes the job at the Wanderer. There she meets the staff who despite her best efforts become a found family of sorts for Chelsea and encourage her to make the most out of the time she has and live in the moment. The biggest proponent of this is the hostel's tour guide and charmer Collin. He is determined to to show Chelsea the magic of his country and get her to slow down and enjoy life a little.

Chelsea was really hard to like. Collin and Flo were so lovely and likeable, I can't imagine them as actual real people being friends with Chelsea. It would have been more realistic that they would have given up on her after a few interactions as she was so whiny and standoffish. Chelsea was so rigid and unwilling to accept her situation. I am all for a plan for your future, but she always putting Collin down for his choice to work at the hostel. Their relationship, while sweet, wasn't very realistic and lacked chemistry. Fortunately, Chelsea figures herself out before it is too late. I also wanted more world building. Ireland is one of my bucket list places to visit and I wanted to experience Ireland through Chelsea and Collin's eyes.

Chelsea is a twenty-eight-year-old who's trying to find a stable career. After she gets laid off of her current job at a small, local bed and breakfast in Boston due to the owners' retirement, the owners suggest that she travel to Ireland, where the owners' relatives own a B&B. Chelsea figures that she would be there for the summer while she attempts to apply for jobs in Boston, since Ireland isn't a long-term goal. But when she arrives, she meets Florence, the B&B's chef from Italy, and Collin, the B&B's tour guide, and they whisk her off to explore Ireland and what it has to offer. Will she fall in love with Ireland, or will she wish she had never come?

Let's start with the only good thing I found about the story. It's mostly Chelsea and Collin going on adventures around the country as he shows her the sights and important landmarks in Ireland. I think it was super cool to learn a bit about Irish storytelling, the Irish culture, and how much history they have rooted in the Emerald Isles. It's very obvious that the Irish are super proud of their culture, and I loved that that was prominent throughout the story. As someone who would love to travel to Ireland one day, I loved that I could feel the culture and the sense of community the bed and breakfast had with employees and visitors alike. Reading this book obviously doesn't replace actually TRAVELING to Ireland and experiencing everything for yourself, but I liked how the author managed to create that sense of culture and community nonetheless.

However, that was probably the only thing I liked about the entire story. Chelsea was absolutely INSUFFERABLE. I think her personality was what made the book drag for me. The book's only 320 pages, which is something I could usually finish in a day, maybe two if I'm busy. This took me almost an entire week to get through. Chelsea was rude, arrogant, felt like everyone was beneath her, and that nothing could get better than Boston. Listen, I love Boston. I've visited the city, I have family over there, and I would love to travel back one day. However, I also know that there's a whole entire world out there that's waiting to be explored and life's too short to confine yourself to one place forever. What bothered me the most was how Chelsea would CONSTANTLY go on all of these super cool adventures with Flo and (mostly) Collin, and she would sit there in front of this beautiful scenery and visit all these landmarks and participate in and immerse herself in the Irish culture, but instead, she would think about how much she hates Ireland and how she wants to go back to Boston to "get her life back on track."

Look, I get it. Chelsea is a very Type A character. She has long-term goals, plans, dreams, and aspirations, and she wants to stick to those goals and plans. There is NOTHING wrong with being a Type A person, because I'm the same way. However, she immediately steps foot into The Wanderer, the bed and breakfast she'll be working at for the summer, and already decides that she hates it because it's not this big, sprawling, high-end hotel. Afterwards, she spends pretty much ALL of the book—no, this is not an exaggeration—thinking about applying to jobs back home in Boston, wanting to leave, and refusing to enjoy her time here despite her friends telling her to keep an open mind while she's there. Her personality was so grating, rude, and arrogant. The banter she had with Collin that she thought was "sarcastic" was just flat out rude and nasty, in my opinion. She shows up, and Collin tells her he's going to take her around the country, and her first thought is basically along the lines of, "good luck trying to get me to like it here." Like...what? You VOLUNTARILY showed up to make money to hold you over while you were between jobs. The least you could do is attempt to assimilate and adapt to your new normal, or else it's going to be a very long summer.

Because of Chelsea's personality, I felt she and Collin had zero chemistry. Most of their conversations were Collin trying to convince Chelsea to just let herself go and enjoy the time she has in Ireland and embracing the Irish culture, and then Chelsea would continuously go on about how Ireland is just a "temporary" thing and how she wants to go home where she has a salaried job and an apartment and her family and friends nearby. It sounded as if she was looking down on people who worked for an hourly wage, and she was above working in a "hostel" (aka The Wanderer). I genuinely think Collin and Chelsea broke up after the story ended.

Overall...just...no. Save your time, money, and energy. I'm so mad that this book put me in a reading slump over the last week, and looking back, I wish I DNF'ed it.

Add this to the list of sweet travel romances! We all know Chelsea’s going to find love during her summer working in Ireland, and it’s a joy to watch that unfold. The supporting characters are so much fun! (I want to be as good of a friend as Ada and Florence are!) And the setting! It’s Ireland; it’s perfect!

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for an eARC of this book! This is my honest review.

Irish Summer is the kind of breezy beach read that goes down as smoothly as a pint of Guinness on a sunny day. With vivid descriptions that had me mentally booking a flight to the Emerald Isle, I completely fell for the charm of Ireland—and Collin, of course. It’s light, fun, and flirty, with just enough heart to keep you turning pages between dips in the ocean. If you’re looking for romance, rolling green hills, and a fictional man worth swooning over, this is your passport.

This was such a cute RomCom. I mean....who doesn't love a story about an American going to Ireland and falling in love with one of those sexy gaelic guys. I loved that the author did research. I have family from Galway so that made me love it even more. I enjoyed watching Chelsea find herself while discovering a new place. She was a bit standoffish when she first got there but I'm so glad she decided to embrace her situation.

I'm wondering if the author will make this a series because I'd love to see more from Chelsea.

An Irish Summer has a wonderful premise: an American woman sets off to Ireland to work at a youth hostel for the summer. Chelsea is abruptly let go from her job in Boston and finds herself homeless when the owners of the B&B where she works decide to retire. They have a connection to a youth hostel in Galway, Ireland and offer her a position there. Her friends and family strongly encourage Chelsea to go and have an adventure, but Chelsea seems to be miserable at every point. I felt like she was dragged to Ireland kicking and screaming, and refused to enjoy herself.

At the youth hostel in Galway, Chelsea gets to know her charming co-workers, including a handsome Irishman, Collin. With each interesting sight and or fun experience, Chelsea constantly reminds herself that she can’t enjoy herself because she is leaving so soon. She tells herself and Collin many times that they can’t possibly have a fling because he’s not ambitious enough and doesn’t fit into her life plan. I really wanted to love Chelsea and enjoy her adventures abroad, but her negativity and close-mindedness were just annoying. She was given a once-in-a-lifetime experience in another country, but refused to explore her new country unless she was forced to by her new friends. I kept hoping that her character would relax and enjoy herself, but she was determined to not allow herself to enjoy her Irish Summer.

The author creates supporting characters who are very kind and welcoming to Chelsea. I enjoyed their relationships as well as all of their work to run the hostel. The descriptions of various sites in Ireland were beautiful, and despite herself, Chelsea falls in love with Ireland too. Without revealing more about the ending of the novel, all is worked out in the end, and I really liked how the author wrapped up Chelsea’s story.

Thank you to Alexandra Paige, Avon and Harper Voyager, and NetGalley for an advance reader’s copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This is a cute, rom-com set in Ireland and Boston with a FMC in her late twenties trying to figure out life after she lost her hospitality job at a B&B. It falls nicely into the Summer read category for me.

I liked the MMC, even though for most of the book readers get little information about him. For most of the book I didn't like the FMC. I did enjoy the descriptive language that helped place me in the setting and drew me back into my own memories from traveling around Ireland.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the dARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was an enjoyable read for me. I love a good Romance, and this one has that and so much more. The Romance development was not sappy or trite. I loved the mix of characters, the setting and the conflict.
The main character, Chelsea from Boston, struggles with her life plans and expectations for her future when she experiences a whole new world of possibilities during her summer job in Ireland. The author really allows the reader to experience getting to know another culture as we experience it along with Chelsea, with her beautiful and thorough descriptions of scenery and traditions .... discovering what makes Ireland special.
The relationships in this story are well developed and meaningful Romance, yes, but also friendships and family.
Thanks to NetGalley for the advance read.

Thank you to NetGalley, Avon and Harper Voyager, and Alexandra Paige for the chance to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

Listen- Listen. I'm ALWAYS going to love a story involving a summer stint in a hospitality environment and service workers falling in love. It started when Zack Morris first laid eyes on Leah Remini's character on the special season of Saved by The Bell where they worked at the beach resort for the summer and CULMINATED in my majoring in Hospitality Management and working a summer internship at an elite Country Club in a resort community- living in employee housing (a foreclosed trailer park) and having an illicit affair with one of the chefs. Or maybe it started with being 4 years old watching Dirty Dancing on repeat.. I don't know.. either way! THIS IS MY CAT NIP! I've loved it and I've lived it.

Enough about me-this was enjoyable. I wanted our FMC to get her head out of her rear about not enjoying her surroundings and appreciating the opportunity because who REALLY wouldn't just live it up for two months in Ireland. But being a fellow "gotta follow the plan and know next steps" girlie, we have to attribute that to her neurosis.

Based on aforementioned expertise- the scenarios played out just as they would in real life. (Futile) Resistance, jealousy, fomo, the indecisiveness of all it- pure romance, heartbreak then resolution. (BUT pro-tip- real life summer hospitality worker romance scenarios don't usually provide an HEA...protect your heart if you take the plunge, besties!)

An Irish Summer is a breezy, heartfelt romantic comedy that swept me away with its charm, humor, and heartfelt longing. Chelsea’s journey from the comforts of Boston to the rainy magic of Galway is the perfect mix of wit and warmth. I loved watching her grow beyond her well-planned life, slowly surrendering to the messy beauty of adventure and the disarming charm of Collin, an Irish tour guide with more than just local secrets up his sleeve.

The story sparkles with vivid setting, lovable characters, and just the right touch of summer magic. It's about rediscovering joy in unexpected places, taking risks when life feels uncertain, and letting your heart lead the way even if it means trading iced coffee for rain boots.

If you're a fan of Sophie Cousens or Beth O’Leary, this one will feel like a hug. It’s romantic, funny, and just the kind of escape I needed. I closed the last page with a happy sigh and a strong urge to book a flight to Ireland.

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Irish Summer

I needed just a good, slightly stereotypical and cliche, summer romance and this book was absolutely the fun I was looking for! While I still felt that there was some depth lacking from our FMC, the MMC and our side characters, and the relationships we build with them along the way, warm your heart with unmistakable love and some good humor, too.

There is always something to be said about the trope of ‘leaving for the summer’ and it changing your life - a special kind of fairytale that seems in the realm of possibilities for anyone 💕

I really enjoyed this lighthearted novel and would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun, flirty romance! The Ireland setting and a few fairy stories are just the cherry on top 🍒

I received an ARC of this novel and thank you to NetGalley and Avon & Harper for the opportunity!

⭐️ 3.5/5
🌶️ 2/5

I think there are people who will really love this book, but for me, it was just an okay, cute read. I’ve read some similarly themed books recently, which is obviously my own fault, but I do think those other books did the travel to a new country and tour company plot points a bit better. And in general, my enjoyment sort of hinges on how much I like the characters, and I ended up liking the side characters more than the protagonist. Her arc fell a little flat for me compared to the personality of the other characters. But like I said, it was quick and cute and a fun summer read.

This was a nice, quick read. I enjoyed the story and the characters.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of the book.

Unfortunately, this book didn’t quite grab my attention and keep me invested. I’m sure many others will love and enjoy it and I will return to it at a different time. But now wasn’t the right time.

This book was a bit slow for me. It was a little boring and hard to get into. One of the main reasons was because the FMC, Chelsea, was extremely difficult to like. She complained about everything and she didn’t go to Ireland with an open mind. She had her plan and wouldn’t allow herself to deviate from it. I guess that’s what the author’s intent was, but I felt it went on for far too long. The book really didn’t start getting interesting until 75% of the way in. The spice was completely minimal in this book. But it did touch my emotions a little bit towards the end, so that why I’m giving it a three star review.