This book is about Cat, a young woman in London who enjoys partying and drinking. When she finds out her real father is living in Nantucket, shoe goes there to meet him after her mother contacts him. After a night of drinking, she returns to London. She meets Jason and they get married and have a daughter. After a number of years, Cat has joined AA and tries to get sober and repair her relationship with her daughter. She and Jason are divorced and she returns to Nantucket to make amends with her half-sisters.

I really enjoyed this book. It's a light "beach" read and keeps the reader entertained. ( )

I wish that I had liked this book as much as I did Cat and Jemima J. In fact I am pretty disappointed that the full length novel was not as great. There was actually no follow-up from that short story to this feature length book. And there was a weird segue that showcased the main character's Cat's mother that really didn't fit with the book at all. I think if that had been cut and stayed focused on Cat the whole book would have worked. The ending I think was supposed to be uplifting, but I felt cheated as a reader to not get a final scene together with the character we had been following and get to see how things were going to work out. Heck even an epilogue would have worked.

Summer Secrets goes back and forth in time with us following the character of Cat Coombs. Cat is a journalist and though she drinks a bit, thinks that she has everything under control. Readers quickly find out that Cat only thinks she has things under control. We see her in 2014 when she's several months sober, living with her daughter and divorced. We then go back in time to 1998 to see Cat when she was in the midst of realizing that she was an alcoholic and trying to stop for the first time ever. She receives news at the same time that the man she thought was her real father her entire life was actually not her father. Finding out that he is an American and lives in Nantucket, Cat travels there to meet him and two half sisters she never knew she had.

The character of Cat really didn't arouse any sort of feeling in me at all. No pity or disdain for how out of control her life had gotten. If anything I felt like I was reading a paint by numbers portrait of a woman who had a drinking problem who in due course would fix it. I think my main issue is that I have read other authors who have tackled this subject much better for me, like Amy Hatvany's Best Kept Secret. For me, it felt like Summer Secrets glossed over how bad drinking Cat's drinking was. At one point she wakes up in bed and not sure where she is, but of course she waked up in a bed of a nice man that didn't try anything, that she feels herself instantly attracted to. Her addiction to alcohol just didn't feel real. Neither did her sobriety when it came. I think as a reader if we had gotten to see how bad things really were and felt them and got to see her struggle than I could have believed it. I think that's the problem when trying to tackle such a serious subject matter and then make it fit in with contemporary romance.

The other characters in this book are paper thin by the way. Once again it felt like we glossed over certain characters like Sam (one of Cat's best friends) who was disparaging towards her not drinking anymore. Cat mentions that she rid herself of her other hard partying friends, but she doesn't ditch the guy who acts like she doesn't have a problem and asks her if she wants a drink? Are you serious?

Another character I had a hard time with was Cat's mother. We know she suffered from severe depression and that her mother obviously had an affair with another man, but still stayed married to Cat's father. Well at one point Cat goes on that even though she didn't have a father who loved her, she did have a mother who loved her. This is hundreds of pages later when we find out that Cat's mother couldn't even get out of bed most days and stayed hidden until her husband came home. Frankly I wish that we had gotten a scene, any scene between these two women with Cat's mother acknowledging that the man who she thought was her father's coldness may have come from him realizing that his wife had cheated on him and that the daughter he was raising was not his. It was said by Cat's father how she had to be a changeling since she looked nothing like him and only had his wife's eyes and teeth.

Cat's ex husband Jason was apparently set to default attractive male and there was never any attempt to provide any insight to the guy at all until the end. I honestly didn't care for this character based on how he behaved in this book. And I wish that we were able to see what made him so wonderful.

The writing reads like many of Jane Green's later novels which makes me sad. I had hope with Cat and Jemima J that we really were headed back to one of her more chick-lit type books taking place in London. Unfortunately most of the book took place in Nantucket and I am so sick of reading about that location it is not even funny. Are there no other beaches anywhere?

The flow also got messed up due to at one point we had an aside throw in to showcase Cat's mother when she went home to visit her aunt in Nantucket. We get to see her fall instantly in lust with a man and we readers of course realize that is Cat's father. The whole meet and aftermath really didn't work since there was no there there with the character who was Cat's real father.

The ending was left on a happy note, but honestly, it didn't feel earned at all once you get through all of the pages of ups and downs that came before it. ( )

4.5 stars.

Summer Secrets by Jane Green is an emotionally compelling and heartrending novel about one woman's battle to get sober.

Catherine "Cat" Coombs love affair with alcohol began when she was a teenager and did not end until she hit rock bottom in her forties. The years in between were a blur of hangovers, blackouts, bad parenting and horrendous drunken decisions. In her twenties, Cat makes her first real attempt at sobriety after meeting Jason Halliwell, another recovering alcoholic, but unfortunately, she is more interested in a romantic relationship with Jason than sobriety. When her mother reveals shocking information about her father, Cat makes a trip to Nantucket to meet her family and her journey ends rather abruptly when she commits a spectacular (and unforgivable) betrayal. After this latest shameful fall from grace, Cat spends several years sobering up only to fall off the wagon again and again. Fast forward to her forties when she finally hits rock bottom after her husband divorces her and wins custody of their thirteen year daughter, Annie, and she finally sobers up for the right reason: herself. She has been doing the heavy lifting necessary to maintain her sobriety when Cat, at long last, must make amends to the two people she has been avoiding: her sisters.

Cat is, in so many ways, a typical addict. She lies to herself, her friends and her family about her drinking. She is marginally aware that she drinks more than her friends and she is fully convinced she can quit drinking anytime she wants. And she does. But only long enough to "prove" to herself and others that she is firmly in control of her drinking. However, as anyone who has ever been touch by addiction knows, Cat is an alcoholic (albeit a functioning one) and she is nowhere close to being in control of her drinking.

When Cat is in her late twenties, as she sees her friends moving on from partying as they settle down, marry and have children, she knows she is being left behind, but she is powerless to move forward. After meeting Jason, she makes her first real attempt at gaining sobriety, but she is only going through the motions of going to meetings with him. She does cut back on her drinking, but she does not give it up completely, nor does she really believe what she hears at AA meetings.

Despite Jason's warnings not to travel to Nantucket until she is further along in the program, Cat is convinced she can handle meeting her father and half-sisters without ruining the visit with her drunken antics. However, once she arrives, she easily convinces herself that she can continue socially drinking with the rest of her family and initially, she manages to limit how much she drinks. But in actuality, Cat is a disaster in waiting and one night, she blacks out and when she wakes up the next morning, her life begins a downward spiral that does not end until her divorce several years later.

It is very easy to feel all of the raw emotion that Cat experiences and her shame and disgust at her behavior practically leaps off the pages. Equally apparent is Cat's loneliness and despair over her failed marriage but at this point in her recovery, she is unflinchingly honest that her drinking is to blame for her divorce. Her unrelenting pain over the loss of her husband is utterly heartbreaking as is her persistent hope that he will give her another chance. This sorrow is perfectly balanced by the surprising welcome and forgiveness Cat finds in Nantucket but her reconciliation with her sisters is marred by lies and a distressing act of revenge.

With Summer Secrets, Jane Green presents an remarkably honest portrait of addiction. The devastating effects alcoholism are realistically presented in such a way that it is easy to empathize with Cat and her long journey to sobriety. Although it is not a light-hearted read, Summer Secrets is a riveting novel of hope and redemption and it is one that I highly recommend. ( )

Deep and powerful novel about the effects of alcoholism on the individual, their spouses, children and friends. This is an inside reveal of the mind games and emotions of someone trapped in alcoholism and the unintended drama, havoc and destruction that inevitably follows when someone is in denial. The main character, Cat, becomes entrapped by the deception of alcohol at an early age when she uses it as a tool to overcome her shyness and uncomfortable feeling she has about her adolescent face and body. After she discovers the power that vodka and wine has to free her of her negative thoughts, she does not have the will to stop. Cat's mother, Audrey, a depressed defeated woman, and her father, a handsome but aloof man, were unable to help or care for Cat during the tumultuous teenage years. Cat becomes a full blown functional alcoholic with a dysfunctional social life and marriage. Her mother reveal a family secret when she is 29 which catapults Cat to Nantucket, Massachusetts where the bottomless pit of alcoholism goes even deeper still. This is a very good read for anyone who has experienced the effect of alcoholism in their family. Written with sensitivity, truth, understanding and redemption. ( )

Cat Coombs first introduction to booze was in high school when her addiction to booze and frequent blackouts began by her desire to fit in with the crowd. She has struggled with addiction her whole life, always turning to alcohol for comfort, and ruining so many important relationships along the way.
The secrets began a long time ago when Cat’s mom, Audrey, spent a summer on Nantucket with her Aunt Judith. “As the years pass, Cat grows into her forties, a struggling single mother, coping with sobriety.” Cat travels to Nantucket herself in attempts to make amends with some of the people she hurt along the way as a step in her AA program. There were several plot twists along the way that keep the book interesting.
This book was full of family drama with lovely Nantucket as the back drop. This one is perfect for your beach bag. ( )