A note from author Nancy Thayer
Author Spotlight NancyThayer “Dear Reader,Summer has always been a magical time for me.
When I was a girl in Kansas, I relished being free from school. I had all the time in the world to ride my bike, goof off with my friends, and lie under a tree, reading.Reading was my escape from chores, my annoying siblings, and from the powerful summer heat.
Reading was also my entrance into new and wonderful worlds. For part of my day, I was Cleopatra, Huck Finn, Anne of Green Gables.I read just as much now that I live on the beautiful island of Nantucket. After living here for thirty-five years, I’ve learned that romance really does happen, that an older woman really can be loved by a younger man, and that grown children who’ve gone off on the wrong path can return home. All of that is what I wrote about in Girls of Summer. I hope you enjoy it!Nancy Thayer
ABOUT GIRLS OF SUMMER
One life-changing summer on Nantucket brings about exhilarating revelations for a single mother and her two grown children in this sensational novel from New York Times bestselling author Nancy Thayer.
Lisa Hawley is perfectly satisfied living on her own. Having fully recovered from a brutal divorce nearly two decades earlier, she has successfully raised her kids, Juliet and Theo, seeing them off to college and beyond. As the owner of a popular boutique on Nantucket, she’s built a fulfilling life for herself on the island where she grew up. READ MORE »
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READ AN EXCERPT
“Remember, Lisa’s mother had often said, it’s good to know where you want to be, but sometimes you have to go in the opposite direction to get there. Lisa knew her mother was right because her mother was, as was her father, a high school teacher full of knowledge and experience. She also knew that when they had married, her mother had wanted to have five children and her father had wanted to be a novelist. Instead, they taught in the Nantucket high school and had only one child, the fortunate Lisa, but they said they were extremely happy throughout their lives. So maybe they didn’t get where they intended to go, but they ended up where they were meant to be.Lisa thought about her mother’s words a lot. Her teachers always told her that she could make something of herself. She could be an astronaut or a doctor or the governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts!
Lisa politely thanked them but secretly wondered why she should do anything other than what she loved doing most: swimming at Surfside Beach in the summer, biking around the island in the fall and spring, and creating entire wardrobes of clothes for her many dolls during the winter.Actually, she knew why she should do something else: to please her parents. Even if it wasn’t her fault—how could it possibly be her fault?—that they had no other children, that her father never wrote a novel, even so, she felt a powerful obligation to her parents, these people who had given her life, and that life had given her so much good fortune. They never pushed her, but she knew they expected and hoped for a lot from her.
They gave her violin and piano lessons. Ice skating and swimming lessons. She mastered them, but she didn’t excel at any of them. She never brought home a gold medal for them to put on their mantel. CONTINUE READING
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