Caffeinated Reviewer

“These Summer Storms,” a contemporary fiction by Sarah MacLean, was among my most looked-forward-to books of 2025. When I found out Julia Whelan was narrating, I knew I had to listen along. MacLean delivered the perfect beach read filled with family, new beginnings and loss.

New York Times bestselling author Sarah MacLean’s first foray into contemporary fiction, with a sharp, sexy novel about a wealthy New England family's long-overdue reckoning with hidden desires, destructive secrets…and one week that threatens to tear them apart

Alice isn't like the other Storm siblings. While the rest stayed to battle for their parents' approval, attention, and untold billions, she left, building her own life beyond the family’s name and influence. Nothing could induce her to come back, except the shocking death of her larger-than-life father. Now back on the family’s private island off the Rhode Island coast, she plans to keep her head down, pay the last of her respects, and leave the minute the funeral is over.

Unfortunately, her father had other plans. The eccentric, manipulative patriarch left his widow and their grown children a final challenge--an inheritance game designed to humiliate, devastate, and unravel the Storm family in ways both petty and life-altering. The rules of the game are clear: stay on the island for one week, complete the tasks, receive the inheritance.

One week on Storm Island is an impossible task for Alice. Every corner of the sprawling old house is bursting dysfunctional chaos: Her older sister’s secret love affair. Her brother’s incessant mansplaining. Her sister-in-law’s unapologetic greed. Her younger sister’s obsession with "vibes". Her mother’s penchant for stirring up competition between her children. And all under the stern, watchful gaze of Jack Dean, her father’s enigmatic, unfairly good-looking, second-in-command. It will be a miracle if Alice manages to escape the week unscathed.

A story about the transformative power of grief, love, and family, this luscious novel is at once deliciously clever and surprisingly tender, exploring past secrets, present truths, and futures forged in the wake of wild summer storms.

Unlike her siblings, who seek their wealthy father’s approval, Alice Storm has distanced herself from her family and built her own life, rejecting his demands. But now he is dead and Alice has been summoned to the family’s private island off the Rhode Island coast. She boards a train, forgetting that it’s Labor Day weekend and ends up sharing her row with a handsome, quiet man. The tale that unfolds hooked me from the start.

The story has a side romance wrapped in family drama and character growth, as the Storm patriarch attempts to control them all from beyond the grave. They are each tasked with completing something in a Knives-Out kind of competition. Alice doesn’t receive a letter, and her siblings are shaken by the demands laid out before them. All must complete the task or all forfeit their inheritance.

We get twists and turns as each goes about completing their task. Some must sacrifice everything, others must swallow their pride and get their hands dirty. As they work through the weekend, Alice must face her estranged siblings and mother as she deals with the attraction she is feeling for her father’s right-hand man, Jack.

We get all the drama and see the darker side of a wealthy family who seem to have everything. I loved how MacLean peeled back their layers.

The story has all the elements for the perfect beach read from We Were Liars vibes to The Inheritance Games. Julie Whelan offered a wonderful narration, giving voice to each of these characters and capturing their emotions and the tone of the story as it unfolded. While I read along, her voice transported me and I highly recommend listening.

Amazon | Audible | Libro.fm

About Sarah MacLean

MacLean burst onto the romance scene with Nine Rules to Break When Romancing A Rake, the first in her best-selling and critically acclaimed three-book Love By Numbers series. In early 2012, she began her new, pre-Victorian Rules of Scoundrels series with A Rogue by Any Other Name, which received the 2013 RITA Award from the Romance Writers of America. The third book in the series, No Good Duke Goes Unpunished, won the 2014 RITA Award. When she is not writing romance, Sarah travels the country to discuss the romance genre and its place in both gender and cultural studies. She writes a monthly column celebrating the best in romance for the Washington Post, and her columns have appeared in the New York Times Book Review and Parents Magazine. She is also a vocal advocate for issues relating to education and literacy. She lives in New York City with her husband, her daughter and their dog.

Website | Facebook

About Julia Whelan

Julia Whelan is a screenwriter, life-long actor, and award-winning audiobook narrator. She graduated with a degree in English and Creative Writing from Middlebury College and Oxford University. While in England, her flirtation with tea blossomed into a full-blown love affair, culminating in her eventual certification as a tea master. When not writing her own books, you can find her reading other people’s out loud into a microphone.

Website | Facebook

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

• 2025 Audiobook Challenge

About Kimberly

Kimberly is a coffee loving book addict who reads and listens to fictional stories in all genres. Whovian, Ravenclaw, Howler and proud Nonna. She owns and manages Caffeinated PR. The coffee is always on and she is ready to chat. BlueSky | Facebook | Instagram

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