All the Summers In Between
“Make room in your beach bag for this mesmerizing book” (Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author) about two estranged friends whose unexpected reconnection in the Hamptons forces them to finally confront the terrible event that drove them apart.
When wealthy, impulsive Margot meets hardworking and steady Thea in the summer of 1967, the unlikely pair become fast friends, working alongside one another in a record store and spending every spare moment together. But after an unspeakable incident on one devastating August night, they don’t see one another for ten years…until Margot suddenly reappears in Thea’s life, begging for help and harboring more than one dangerous secret. Thea can’t bring herself to refuse her beloved friend—but she also knows she can’t fully trust her either.
Unfulfilled as a housewife, Thea enjoys the dazzling sense of adventure Margot brings to her life, but will the truth of what happened to them that fateful summer ruin everything? Testing the boundaries of how far she’ll go for a friend, Thea is forced to reckon with her uncertain future while trying to decide if some friends are meant to remain in the past.
Set in the dual timelines of 1967 and 1977, All the Summers In Between is at once “a taut, dynamic examination” (Lynda Cohen Loigman, author of The Wartime Sisters) of a complex friendship, a delicious glimpse into a bygone Hamptons, and a powerful coming-of-age story of two young women during a transformative era.
When wealthy, impulsive Margot meets hardworking and steady Thea in the summer of 1967, the unlikely pair become fast friends, working alongside one another in a record store and spending every spare moment together. But after an unspeakable incident on one devastating August night, they don’t see one another for ten years…until Margot suddenly reappears in Thea’s life, begging for help and harboring more than one dangerous secret. Thea can’t bring herself to refuse her beloved friend—but she also knows she can’t fully trust her either.
Unfulfilled as a housewife, Thea enjoys the dazzling sense of adventure Margot brings to her life, but will the truth of what happened to them that fateful summer ruin everything? Testing the boundaries of how far she’ll go for a friend, Thea is forced to reckon with her uncertain future while trying to decide if some friends are meant to remain in the past.
Set in the dual timelines of 1967 and 1977, All the Summers In Between is at once “a taut, dynamic examination” (Lynda Cohen Loigman, author of The Wartime Sisters) of a complex friendship, a delicious glimpse into a bygone Hamptons, and a powerful coming-of-age story of two young women during a transformative era.
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Community Reviews
“Friends were the people you went to for belly laughs, for birthday drinks, for a person who would take your side no matter what, but more important, friends were the pillars of strength in our lives. A friend could remind you in an instant that you were likable, that you were special, that you were so much more than what strangers saw when they met you for the first time. Old friends–they were another kind of important. You kept parts of them inside you for a lifetime.” They taught you “to live with joy, to live in the mindset that a daydream or a sleepover could become a reality.”
On the cusp of her 30th birthday, Thea reminisces about Margot. “She thought of them swimming in the ocean all those summers in between…They had shared their youth, the summer they met, their endless connection. Because they weren’t just friends. They were the guardians of each other’s secrets, the keepers of each other’s deeply held dreams, the survivors of a terrible night that bound them together like pages in a book.”
Margot reappears seeking refuge in Thea’s boathouse, but “there’s only one reason someone doesn’t want to be found…Because she’s guilty of something…Relationships were as vulnerable as a rowboat in the ocean in a nor’easter–if you weren’t careful, they could slip under the water forever…Their friendship carried historical debt…Thea believed she needed to repay her…Accompanying Margot on this boat was just another test of loyalty. Of friendship. Of a story that they’d laugh about the next time they got together.” But “What if the two of them packed up the car with their belongings and a secret so big they crumbled under the weight?”
“Lucy and Ethel have certainly gotten themselves into a pickle…They were like two queens facing off on a chess board, and Thea wouldn’t be toppled first…This isn’t going to end well.” How far would you go for a friend? How much would you be willing to overlook to settle the score? Grab your beach towel, butter pecan ice cream, and raise a toast, “To the worst good times” and All the Summers in Between.
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