I wanted so much more from this. Middling at best. I think there was a lot of potential here, but the character development fell short.

Okay first up: take whatever you think you know of the author out of the question. Give her a fair trial on this book by releasing any preconceived notions - this book reads like general fiction or even litfic, but it’s got a swoony romance side plot that’s to die for.

The Storm family’s patriarch Franklin is basically a combo of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs- a billionaire who made his money by creating tech we can’t live without. He’s got four kids, a wife, an empire, and a private island compound of a home. He’s just passed away (dramatically, in a gliding accident because of course he did), and his brood are Catherine back home on the island for a funeral (nay, a celebration!) and to find out what’s next for the company - and the money.

The story is told mainly from Alice’s perspective. She’s the artsy kid who went her own way to the point of “blowing up” Franklin and the company and being exiled from the family. (This becomes clear later in the book.) We are left wondering what she doesn’t know that’s been going on for the last five years. Each sibling has their own junk they’re dealing with in the wake of a billionaire father who liked to play games (such as the dangerous Storm Olympics every 4th of July) and isn’t done with the last one yet.

All in all, I’d say to preorder this book and then read it IMMEDIATELY upon its release. Summering in New England vibes, matched with a rich and crazy family, a perfect romance side plot, and a very, very satisfying at the culmination. 10/10, no notes.

Powerful, sad, family, love affairs, hateful, secrets, all the words I can use for this book. If you haven’t read it yet I highly recommend it.
This was my first book by Sarah and I can’t wait to read more from her. The way she writes has you hooked from the beginning.

I gobbled this book up.
I've read and enjoyed several of MacLean's historical romances, and I was eager to see what she'd do with a contemporary setting. These Summer Storms is the fascinating love child of a family saga and a modern romance. It will be a great beach read for you if you enjoy stories with:
* complicated and/or dysfunctional family dynamics
* a variety of personality types, some very unpleasant and/or controlling and/or toxic
* a dramatic setting (in this case, a quirky old mansion on a tiny private island of great natural beauty)
* explorations of what people will and won't do for/with money
* funny banter between siblings, friends, and lovers
* protective partners

What I loved about this book:
* the interesting high-stakes premise
* the obvious mysteries and skeletons in this family's closets
* the humorous dialogue
* the obvious strong attraction between Alice and Jack
* the inheritance conditions assigned to Alice's brother
* that someone who richly deserved it got slapped at the end
* the ease and smoothness of the read

What worked less well for me:
A lot of my questions--things that kept me eagerly reading to learn the answers--were never resolved, particularly about Alice's mom and her relationships with others, about Jack's relationship with Alice's dad, about how and when and what Jack learned about Alice before they actually met. I need details! :D [This may be a 'me' problem; I had this whole story/explanation in my head and desperately wanted it confirmed, or else I wanted to be surprised. But...I'm hanging here.]
Jack was still an enigma for me at the end, too, and Alice never pinned him down on some very important issues.
A couple of characters did astounding turnarounds by the end that were not entirely believable; it was a fraught and emotional week, yes, but still only a week.
Finally, I really would like to have seen more of always-does-the-right-thing Alice. It seemed like we knew of that side of her only through narration and recollections, while we lived with the poor-mistreated-me version. I'm not saying she didn't have good reason to feel sad and betrayed and hurt by her family's behavior over the years; I'm just saying that we have hints of a stronger, more likeable and interesting side of her--the one that Jack presumably (??) fell in love with--and THAT's the Alice I really want to meet.

Anyway. All that said, I read this book quickly, eagerly, and with great enjoyment. I will keep my fingers crossed for a longer director's cut that includes all the info my inquiring mind wants to know!

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and to NetGalley for the opportunity to read the e-ARC version of this book. The opinions here are strictly my own.

Sarah MacLean knocks it out of the park with this one. With her trademark complexity and emotional depth, she draws readers into the novel--a contemporary, which is a shift from her historical romances. She hits all the right notes--compelling family drama, a sexy stranger and brilliant banter.

A story of families and love and romance that is beautifully written. Alice is coming home for the first time in 5 years after her father disowned her, and her mother and siblings cut her off. It’s for her father’s funeral so emotions are already high when they learn in order to inherit his fortune everyone must stay on the island for five days. Not an easy feat for this family. And to complicate things even more the guy Alice slept with the night before turns out to be employed by her father as his fixer.
Well written with very detailed and interesting characters, this is goi g to be a big read for the summer.

Entertaining read if you're looking for a juicy, fluffy drama. I won't be the first or last reviewer to compare the book to the Succession tv show with all the children of the billionaire vying for their stake in their inheritance. This one is a bit more on-the-nose with the billionaire father leaving explicit sets of instructions for each person to accomplish in order to inherit. The story was entertaining enough but it seemed to keep retreading the same ground over and over (Is Jack amazing or shady?).

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

This was such an interesting new turn for Sarah Maclean. I was immediately invested. Sarah’s writing always captures me so quickly and I devour anything she writes and this was no exception.

I received a copy for review and all opinions are my own. What a great book full of family drama with a little humor and romance sprinkled in. I got to know all of the characters so well and was really rooting for them all in different ways. These Summer Storms had fantastic character development and the entire book was easy to follow and a very enjoyable read. It made me feel like I was standing alongside the characters in every scene. This was a perfect read for lounging outside and enjoying some fictional drama.

I enjoyed the first three-fourths of this novel. Even though the Storm siblings grew up with incredible wealth, they are all mostly likeable. Sam never really got his act together, even though he was expected to become the next CEO of the company, and he needed financial help from his father his whole life, but he wasn’t nearly as despicable as his wife, who is every stereotype of a spoiled rich kid who only loves money. The mother is also not likeable, but Greta, Alice, and Emily are much nicer than you’d expect from kids of a billionaire. Only Alice, however, told her father she didn’t need his money, and she made her way as a teacher and artist in New York.

When their father dies, they all come home to Storm island for the funeral, or, as their mother repeatedly corrects them, the celebration. But when they get there, they are all given letters telling them what they must do for the next week in order to get their inheritance—and if even one of them doesn’t complete their task, no one inherits anything.

Over the course of the week, secrets are revealed, and some wounds begin to heal. Parts of the ending I didn’t love.

NetGalley provided an advance copy of this novel, which RELEASES JULY 8, 2025.

I have read all of Sarah Maclean’s historical romance books and wanted to see her take on contemporary romance. I was surprised to find that the romance was more of a B plot but I still found the rest of the story interesting.

The family dynamics were interesting and it was nice to have new information about the past continually revealed in a way that felt organic and that kept the plot moving. I liked Alice as a character and I think a lot was done to humanize her siblings that could have just come off as caricatures of rich offspring.

I loved the romance and Jack was a perfect match for Alice. However, I think he as a character was underdeveloped. I don’t think there was much space to develop any more characters so I understand why, but it would have been nice to understand why Jack was so devoted to Alice so quickly.

Sarah Maclean has a very dramatic writing style that is well suited to historical romance and I was concerned about how it would translate to contemporary. I think she chose a story with very high stakes that suits her writing style. All in all, a good read.

Thank you to Net Galley for an ARC of this book. I LOVED IT!! This is my first Sarah MacLean book but I listen to her podcast Fated Mates each week and was so excited to check it out. This had everything I wanted in a book - a complicated family, a hot love story, and slow reveals over time. I loved that this book had a strong romantic plot while also having an a plot with complicated family dynamics and secrets to be revealed. I thought the story had excellent characters who you could both love and hate and overall a really interesting story. Love love love this book!

I adore Sarah MacLean's historical romances, so I was super excited to pick her contemporary debut up! While it didn't land for me as much as I hoped, I did enjoy several parts of this book.

As always, MacLean excels at writing complicated sibling dynamics. She then contrasts that with deeply supportive on-page friendships, creating a beautiful foil for those messy family dynamics. This allows the reader to see both the flaws and strengths of the main character highlighted against these core relationships.

Though it did err a bit on the side of insta-love the romantic thread throughout the book really worked for me. You can see MacLean's romance roots here and she really delivers a hit of those delicious, tropey lines romance readers crave.

The character dynamics were the real standout for me, but the modern day premise revolving around billionaire families just didn't capture my attention and I found myself struggling to stay invested in the plot of these ultra-wealthy characters. This is less the book's fault and more my own taste coming into play.

3.5 stars

There are few things that will draw me to crack a book faster than the promise of family dynamics, particularly when this connects to siblings. That is what brought me to this read, and it's what helped me stay interested despite other reading challenges I faced along the way.

Alice Storm is living her best black sheep life. Several years ago, she detached from her mindblowingly wealthy family so that she could start living life fully on her terms and without the safety net of many millions of dollars. This whole setup is giving softball _Succession_ at first, and if the narrative had continued more in that direction, I'd have been thrilled. Instead, it spirals into a romance that I found problematic on so, SO many levels. For a person who has made (what most would consider to be) the extreme choice to give up permanent financial stability and comfort for more autonomy, it's just WEIRD that Alice would choose this particular romantic situation with all of the details it entails. The whole thing caused me to constantly question how the same character could have made one distinct life choice and then be carrying on with THIS, and it also made me not want to root for her character at all.

This is my first book by this author, and while I appreciate the writing style and did find the plot engaging, I wanted to scream at most of these characters: Alice especially. For me, this one went from _Succession_ to depression, but I will definitely give this writer another shot.

4/5

Born into a family of obscene wealth and privilege, Alice Storm was never afforded her own path, and was subsequently exiled for choosing one of her own. Upon the death of her father, Franklin Storm, Alice is called back into the fold to mourn his passing and celebrate the legacy of a tech industry titan. Stuck on the family’s private island off the coast of Rhode Island, Alice and her siblings soon face the strings attached to their inheritance and the final game their father constructed from beyond the grave. The catch? They have to play or forfeit the millions they hoped to inherit. With one week to play the game the past is never closer to the present, and family grievances could be the deciding force in who wins the game and who is out before it can even begin. Sarah Maclean never saw a structurally sound building or complicated family dynamics she couldn't mess with and I, as always, am here for her meddling. These Summer Storms is a far departure from Maclean’s typical historical romance ventures, but nevertheless a clever twist on the corporate family power struggle. Maclean brings together her flawed family—the straight and narrow eldest with a secret life, the arrogant successor convinced he will inherit the crown, the exiled artist, and the crystal & astrology obsessed youngest daughter, all vying for their inheritances. These Summer Storms is Succession on steroids, complete with all the spiteful feuds and particular personalities that clash and make these stories so entertaining while exposing unique experiences of grief and family. It all comes crashing down rather spectacularly (quite standard to Maclean) with reconciliation not so far off and even the fiercest of storms finding harmony.

I was expecting an easy, cozy rom-com but this was so much more. I loved the family dynamics, the drama and intrigue of the overbearing and controlling parent, who even in death found a way to force the family to do his bidding. The bickering and childish digs were in full force with the four siblings, the mother was distant and one in-law is vile and the other understanding and jokingly called the favorite.
Throw into this mix a hot, handsome guy and suddenly romance comes into play. This was funny, emotional, realistic and extremely readable.
Thankyou Netgalley for the ARC.

These Summer Storms tells the story of a complex family as they come to terms with their father. All four Storm siblings have gathered at their Rhode Island home, each of them harboring secrets and hidden desires, as well as the complicated relationships they have with each other as well as their parents. It was fascinating to watch it all unravel, emotional ups and downs, with a carrot dangling in the distance—the possibility of a very large inheritance. But there are strings attached, and a game that must be played in order for them to claim not only their individual shares, but risking the others’ inheritance if they don’t follow the rules. In the middle of it all is Alice, banished by her father five years earlier, she has so much to unpack—including her tangled feelings for Jack, a stranger on a train who is destined to be so much more. This novel is an outstanding conglomeration of intense family drama and romance, and it all works in this fascinating book about a family who should have it all—but don’t. I received an advance reader copy of this book.

I really enjoyed this! There were twists and turns, drama, romance, and social critiques all mixed into this book. I think this would make a great beach read.

I really got into this book. I devoured it, breath by breath, page by page, mostly curled up in the backseat during a road trip through Switzerland. The irony wasn’t lost on me—surrounded by majestic mountains and lakes, yet utterly transported to the windswept coasts of Rhode Island, where this unforgettable story unfolded.

At its heart, this novel is about family—but not in a neatly packaged, Hallmark way. No, this family is gloriously messy, deeply human, and so achingly real I felt like I was eavesdropping at their kitchen table. After the death of a powerful patriarch—both a father and a formidable boss—the ones left behind are forced to reckon with their grief, their secrets, and with each other. The wife. The four children. Each so layered and flawed and alive. I found myself loving them, resenting them, aching for them. Sometimes all at once.

There’s romance here, tender and uncertain. There’s mystery, too, humming quietly beneath the surface, building like a storm you can smell in the air before it breaks. But most of all, there’s truth—the kind that cuts you open just a little, in the best way.

I thought I was just picking up a book to pass the time. Instead, it took me somewhere deeper, somewhere richer—into the lives of people I didn’t know I would care about so fiercely. When it ended, it felt like waking up from a vivid dream.

If you’ve ever loved a story so much that closing the last page felt like saying goodbye to real people—this is that kind of book. I’ll carry it with me for a long time.

These Summer Storms is a smart, emotionally layered dive into family legacy, expectation, and identity—wrapped in a glittering package of summer drama and secrets. While a bit of a departure from Sarah MacLean’s signature historical romances, her first foray into contemporary fiction proves just as compelling.

The opening chapters felt a touch clunky, but by Chapter 6, the story hits its stride as the Storm siblings begin to grapple with the “rules” left behind by their father—a Steve Jobs-level tech visionary whose death kicks off a high-stakes, emotionally loaded homecoming. Think The Inheritance Games meets The List on Netflix, with a touch of Succession and The Crown (Season 1 Margaret/Peter Townsend energy, anyone?).

At the heart of it is Alice Storm, returning to the family she walked away from five years ago, and to the billion-dollar legacy she’s tried to forget. What unfolds is a tense, often poignant exploration of sibling dynamics—Sam, the expectant future Storm CEO; Greta, her mother’s shadow; Emily, the free spirit—all of whom are navigating secrets that threaten their share of the Storm empire.

While the novel isn’t pitched as a romance, the scenes with Jack Dean are chef’s kiss—electric and quietly tender in a way that adds emotional weight and sparkle to the whole story. And, true to MacLean’s strengths, there’s a deeply satisfying exploration of love—familial, romantic, and self.

At its core, These Summer Storms is about regret, reinvention, and the question that haunts so many of us: Are we ever enough—especially for the people who raised us?

A must-add to your summer reading list—especially if you love dysfunctional family drama, high-stakes secrets, and a slow burn with real emotional payoff. Can’t wait to see what MacLean writes next in this space!

All or a portion of this review will be posted on Instagram at www.instagram.com/thewishlit; no later than May 31 with the publication date. I will also post it on Goodreads on May 23.