The Guest Cottage Nancy Thayer

The Guest Cottage
Nancy Thayer
Published: Ballantine Books
Date: 12th May 2015
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 336
Genre: Women's fiction
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Sensible thirty-six-year-old Sophie Anderson has always known what to do. She knows her role in life: supportive wife of a successful architect and calm, capable mother of two. But on a warm summer night, as the house grows quiet around her and her children fall asleep, she wonders what’s missing from her life. When her husband echoes that lonely question, announcing that he’s leaving her for another woman, Sophie realizes she has no idea what’s next. Impulsively renting a guest cottage on Nantucket from her friend Susie Swenson, Sophie rounds up her kids, Jonah and Lacey, and leaves Boston for a quiet family vacation, minus one.

Also minus one is Trevor Black, a software entrepreneur who has recently lost his wife. Trevor is the last person to imagine himself, age thirty and on his own, raising a little boy like Leo—smart and sweet, but grappling constantly with his mother’s death, growing more and more closed off. Hoping a quiet summer on the Nantucket coast will help him reconnect with Leo, Trevor rents a guest house on the beautiful island from his friend Ivan Swenson.

Best-laid plans run awry when Sophie and Trevor realize they’ve mistakenly rented the same house. Still, determined to make this a summer their kids will always remember, the two agree to share the Swensons’ Nantucket house. But as the summer unfolds and the families grow close, Sophie and Trevor must ask themselves if the guest cottage is all they want to share.

The Guest Cottage by Nancy Thayer is a delightful summer read.  And if you are reading it in winter, well that's no problem because the promises of summer abound in this book.

Sophie finds herself on the island of Nantucket with her two children Lacey and Jonah.  She has come for the summer break after discovering that her husband wants a divorce.  By chance she finds that the house they have booked has been double booked and she ends up sharing with Trevor and his son Leo.

Trevor's wife has died, but it seems like it was never much of a match anyway, but Trevor's son Leo is still traumatised by the loss of his mother and Trevor is worried.  

As it turns out this is an important time in all their lives.  Sophie finds a piano at the house and is soon recovering her lost love of music and the piano.  That is not the only surprise for her this summer, if her husband doesn't want her, there are at least a couple that do.

Trevor finds he too is dealing with women throwing themselves at him, and not subtly either. The most important person though in his life is Leo, and as the summer progresses sea, sand and sun plus family begin to work miracles.

Nantucket Island sounds like a wonderful place to be, away from city pressures.  This was a very pleasant easy to read book, my first by Nancy Thayer.  I will certainly be keeping my eye out for more to read from her talented 'pen'.