The Guest Cottage

April 15, 2015

Sophie's husband coolly tells her that he's having an affair and wants out. Their marriage has long been one in which she props up his architecture career and looks after their children, but still, she didn't see this coming. Shocked, Sophie takes the children to a friend's Nantucket cottage to think things over. There she finds that another wounded soul, Trevor, who's widowed and has a fragile young son, has also rented the house. The two agree to share the place for a week but end up spending the summer together. Yes, the resulting romance is predictable, but the larger story offers more than the standard happily ever after: other connections are made and the portrayal of how the two families blend is realistically fraught and at times, sweet. This is not Thayer's first beach read nor her first Nantucket tale (Nantucket Sisters, An Island Christmas), and fans of her other books will not be disappointed with this one. VERDICT An enjoyable, well-written story that public library patrons will be clamoring for. [See Prepub Alert, 11/3/14.]--Henrietta Verma, Library Journal

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2015
Everything is better at the beach-even divorce-in the bestselling author's (Nantucket Sisters, 2014, etc.) latest love story set in Nantucket.When Sophie's husband announces that he's leaving her for a younger colleague at his architecture firm, Sophie packs up their two children and heads to her friend Susie's sprawling guest cottage for the summer. What she doesn't know is that Susie's cousin Sven has simultaneously rented the house to his friend Trevor and Trevor's son, Leo. With no contracts to settle the dispute, Sophie and Trevor amicably decide to share the space. Though their chemistry is palpable, Sophie isn't prepared for a fling with a younger man. Trevor's wife, Tallulah, was a self-absorbed actress who died of a drug overdose, but he doesn't portray her as a villain. Though she wasn't a traditional mother, Leo adored her. Skipping ahead to the happy ending, the two broken families fall into a pleasant routine of beachcombing and sharing meals against the beautiful backdrop of the East Coast. Sophie's emotional maturity is her greatest asset as she reconciles her feelings of relief with the hurt she expected to feel about her divorce. When her friend Angie seduces Trevor one night, Sophie takes it in stride, and she's not offended when Trevor's vegetarian friend, Candace, scolds her for serving meat. Instead, Sophie takes up the piano after years of silence and grows out her hair. She is so detached from her crush on Trevor that when the more age-appropriate Hristo offers her a ride on his yacht, she accepts without worrying about Trevor's feelings. Trevor, however, has other plans for her future. It's a pleasant escape to a state of mind in which rebuilding a life is as simple as pitching an umbrella and spreading out a towel.

May 1, 2015
Best-seller Thayer (Nantucket Sisters, 2014) lives on Nantucket, the setting for many of her novels, including this smart and entertaining tale. A good mother to teenage Jonah and 10-year-old Lacey, Sophie is content to coast along in a faltering marriage, but her husband pushes them to the brink of divorce. Sophie eagerly accepts an invitation to spend the summer on Nantucket, but when she and her children arrive, they discover that the cottage has mistakenly been rented to two families. Trevor is a widower with a 4-year-old son, and he and Sophie make a connection that starts as friendship and builds into something more. Mature and thoughtful, Sophie and Trevor won't rush into a relationship, and there are lots of distractions keeping them apart, from a Bulgarian millionaire who takes a liking to Sophie and a man-eating alpha mom desperate to sink her claws into Trevor. The family relationships and challengesring true and add depth to this light, fun read. The combination of summer-at-the-beach living and a second chance at love will prove irresistible to fans of women's fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)