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    A Summer Affair: A Novel
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    A Summer Affair: A Novel
    Unavailable
    A Summer Affair: A Novel
    Audiobook14 hours

    A Summer Affair: A Novel

    Written by Elin Hilderbrand

    Narrated by Isabel Keating

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    She's the perfect wife and mother--and he's the perfect temptation.

    "A perfect summer cocktail of sex, sun, and scandal." --Kirkus Reviews

    Claire has a problem with setting limits. All her life she has taken on every responsibility, assumed every burden, granted every request. Claire wants it all--and in the eyes of her friends, she has it: a devoted husband, four beautiful children, even a successful career as an artist. So when she agrees to chair the committe for Nantucket's social event of the year, she knows she can handle it. Claire can handle anything.
    But when planning the gala propels her into the orbit of billionaire Lock Dixon, unexpected sparks begin to fly. Lock insists on working closely with Claire--often over a bottle of wine--and before long she can't ignore the subtle touches and lingering looks. To her surprise, she can't ignore how they make her feel, either. Claire finds the gala, her life, and herself spinning out of control.
    A Summer Affair captures the love, loss, and limbo of an illicit romance and unchecked passion as it takes us on a brave and breathless journey into the heart of one modern woman.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateJul 1, 2008
    ISBN9781600242335
    Unavailable
    A Summer Affair: A Novel
    Author

    Elin Hilderbrand

    Elin Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket, has three children and is the author of 27 novels, including SUMMER OF ‘69.  Elin met Dottie in the spring of 2017 at the annual Post & Courier luncheon in Charleston and Elin says, “It was love at first sight.” The two authors proceeded to meet on Nantucket every chance they got and they texted and emailed non-stop. They dreamed of doing a joint cooking show called “Cook the Books,” where they would invite a third author on to make a signature dish for each episode. They also talked about a cookbook called “The Southern Belle and the Gray Lady.” Elin’s summer of 2020 novel, 28 Summers, is dedicated to Dottie and Dottie makes a cameo appearance in Elin’s summer of 2021 novel, Golden Girl. “I will never again have a writer friend like Dottie,” Elin says. “Those of you who knew her understand what I mean, and those of you who didn’t will just have to trust me. They broke the mold.”

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    Reviews for A Summer Affair

    3.5/5

    162 ratings12 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I liked this book.
    • 3/5
      A bunch of rich people involved in charity fundraising on Nantucket. Ok, I did read it, and I finished it, and it kept me entertained, but I had lots of problems reading this book. For one, I didn't really care about the characters that much. I find it hard to feel sympathy for someone who willfully has an affair, enjoys it immensely, then gets away with it. In the end, everything is hunky dory and fine. I didn't, however, even care for the husband, who was unaware of the whole thing and actually something of a jerk. I suppose for entertainment value, it merits at least 2 1/2 stars.
    • 4/5
      I had a pit in my stomach through the majority of this book due to the mixed emotions brought on by seeing all sides of the different relationships portrayed. There was the internal guilt Claire and Lock carried for starting and continuing a love affair, the understandable frustrations in their respective marriages--some of which was just common disenchantment after being married for many years, some was more involved due to more tragic circumstances. There was the honesty of their feelings for each other, the confusion of still loving their spouses despite it all, the angst and excitement of keeping it all secret, and the guilt that action causes because it adds another layer of betrayal toward those you love. There was a lot going on in this book, more than just the actions surrounding the two having an affair. There were several other characters we got to see the good, bad, and ugly sides to. Coworkers, former loves, bitter, horrible women whom you wanted to smack through most of the book but by the end...well...you still wanted to smack them but you could understand them a little better. I disliked Claire's best friend/sister-in-law, Siobhan. Except for one fleeting moment where I thought she was being a true friend--I say "true friend" because she wasn't afraid to say what she really felt instead of pretending to be supportive but actually judging Claire--I felt her opinions were based not necessarily on her concern for Claire's family but on her own inner hypocrisy, resentment and jealousy. I got the impression that Siobhan enjoyed being the "bad" to Claire's "nice" and didn't like seeing that Claire had the spine to actually carry out and get away with something that Siobhan always joked about doing. Siobhan had a history of belittling and insulting Claire under the guise of humor that made me distrust her sincerity from the beginning. I was a little disappointed that the story ended without a clear picture of how things would turn out for everyone, especially for Claire's friend, Max. I was a little mad that there was no sign of appreciation for all he had done for her. Sadly, she came across as another person in his life who just uses him. I always like to know what happens after the dust settles. This kind of reminded me of an "Ann Patchett ending".
    • 4/5
      I thought this book was going to be like many other books where I could tell what the ending would be. This book took me in all directions. It was a story of relationships and how they change over the years. Although, there was a "summer affair" I don't think that it should have been titled as such. The story was about so much more than this affair.It had a surprise ending that left me with a feeling of relief and closure. Well done.
    • 4/5
      This is another troublesome book to rate. For me, it was a clear 4 stars as a book club book, but much closer to 3 stars as a straight read.My big question for myself: If the main character's adultery hadn't made me so uncomfortable, how would I have rated the book? Other than this one decision (granted, the main subject of the book), I liked Claire, and was interested in the challenges in her life-- as a mother, as a wife, as an artist.Claire's best friend was probably my favorite character of the book. I didn't agree with all of her decisions, either, but I understood where they came from. I loved going through her conflicted feelings-- she wanted to know what was going on with her best friend's life. When her suspicions were confirmed, she realized she really didn't want to know, and had to figure out where to go next.I found Claire's husband and her lover to be almost non-entities to me. I couldn't bring myself to care at all about either of them. I think this might be because the book (even the affair) was never about either of them. It was about Claire and her need to break out of her roles.In the end, if I treat the adultery as a metaphor for recasting the rules for her life, I'd say overall, I liked the book.
    • 4/5
      My Review:I liked this book a lot. It was better than I expected and I say this because I don't believe the summary of the book does the story justice. The front of my book says, "she was the perfect wife and mother - and he was the perfect temptation." After reading the book I would say that line has no business on the front of the book. I think it cheapens the story.I enjoyed the Nantucket setting, the characters and the main theme. I thought that Claire was like any normal mother of four. I don't think she was the perfect mother, she was just struggling like the rest of us. And she was afflicted with that " mother guilt" about just about everything. I think many modern day mom's can relate to that. I sure can. "Things" happen. Affairs that should never happen, DO happen. I thought the story was very relevant and gave insight to how something like this can happen. I liked how the story takes us through the affair and to the to the other side of the affair.There was a best friend element in the story, as well. I liked the element of Claire and Siobhan's friendship. I liked how Elin Hilderbrand wove the elements of a major social event, motherhood, marriage and friendship into a very interesting story.It was more than just a summery romance book. I don't think everything I read has to be loaded with prose and lyrical writing. I liked this book a lot. I will be looking for more Elin Hilderbrand in the future.
    • 5/5
      Claire is the shining star of this book. Hilderbrand has done a stellar job of presenting and developing her main character. Claire is complex, paradoxical and completely lovable - even when she is being maddeningly frustrating. She lives on Nantucket in a gorgeous house with her handsome, hard-bodied husband and their four young children, has a live-in au pair, yet schleps around town in stretched out yoga clothes with no make up and her hair pulled back in a careless bun. In short, Claire is the kind of girl you'd want to be friends with.Against the backdrop of Nantucket and an upcoming fundraiser gala that Claire has volunteered to co-chair, she commences an affair with local millionaire Lock Dixon. Hilderbrand's portrayal of the affair takes this story to the next level. She eschews stereotypical treatment of the extramarital affair, refusing to make light of it or let it become a mere frivolous subplot. Masterfully, Hilderbrand conveys the depth of feelings - both good and bad - that stem from Claire and Lock's relationship.Indeed, what I loved most about this novel was how real Claire's feelings seem. The passion and yearning associated with the affair, the overwhelming frustration of wanting something so badly, yet knowing that you aren't willing to do what it takes - or give up what is required - to have it. The guilt. The way it inevitably bleeds into every other aspect of your life.Not until part two, 125 pages into the story, does Hilderbrand introduce other narrative voices. Siobhan is Claire's Irish sister-in-law and best friend, outspoken, sarcastic, pretty much the opposite of Claire but likable all the same. We also hear from Lock, who turns out to be a good guy despite his marital transgression.It is interesting to see Nantucket from the perspective of year-round residents. Hilderbrand herself resides on Nantucket, enabling her to describe life on the island beyond the summer scene with authenticity. Siobhan owns a catering business and the descriptions of food throughout the book are mouthwatering - enough so to make one suspect that Hilderbrand just might be a bit of an epicure herself.It takes a talented writer to present a story like this in a way that makes the reader feel sympathy even when the main character is by all accounts behaving badly. Hilderbrand's richly textured rendering of Claire and her life choices make this a book that will completely absorb you and leave you longing to read more of her work.
    • 4/5
      Lately, I've had to squeeze my reading into snatches of time allowed between my kids' end-of-school events. This means that I kept finding myself in the car with a half hour to kill before the next graduation ceremony or all-school sing-a-long. Thank goodness I had A Summer Affair with me -- the perfect book for reading in snatches.Despite the cover and the title, this book is not just about summer. It covers a year in the life of Claire Danner Crispin, busy mother of four young children doing the soccer-football-ice skating runs in her Honda Pilot. Of course, being on the island of Nantucket gives her a better than average commute. Poor Claire with the big heart and too much time on her hands finds herself roped into being the co-chair of the Summer Gala that benefits local needy children. Ahh .. the joys and travails of fundraising, I know them well! Or I thought I did ... While I had my share of disagreeable co-chairs and, unfortunately, embezzlement woes, I never ended up in an affair with the director of the charity sponsoring the gala. Woohoo! Let the games begin! (Warning: there's lots of wine drinking in the book. For those so tempted, a nice sauvignon blanc might make the pages turn even faster.)
    • 3/5
      The story of a summer affair on Nantucket, but it is also about the most strange women on the island. The story centers around the Nantucket social event of the season. The conflicts of the year-rounders and the summer people. All the problems of a summer romance and everyday family life. I loved Elin Hilderbrand's novel because she put the setting of the story on Nantucket.
    • 4/5
      Great summer read = have read all her books! Claire Danner Crispin, mother of four young children and nationally renowned glassblower, bites off more than she can chew when she agrees to co-chair the Nantucket's Children Summer Gala. Claire is asked to chair the benefit, in part, because she is the former high school sweetheart of rock star Max West. Max agrees to play the gala and it looks like smooth sailing for Claire-until she promises a "museum-quality" piece of glass for the auction, offers her best friend the catering job, goes nose-to-nose with her Manhattan socialite co-chair, and begins a "good-hearted" affair with the charity's Executive Director, Lockhart Dixon.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. I plan to read every book this author writes.
    • 3/5
      Nantucket, the very essence of summer. An artist who has given up her craft to mother her children. A marriage that is emotionally unfulfilling. An elaborate fundraising event. And the temptation of a wealthy man. Life just got complicated but is it ever okay to have an affair? Elin Hilderbrand's tense beach read, A Summer Affair, pulls together these disparate situations and poses this very question. Claire is a nationally renowned glass artist who has given up her art after an accident in the studio left her unconscious, dangerously dehydrated, and caused her to deliver her fourth child prematurely. Her worries and guilt about baby Zack and the permanent damage she might have done him led her to agree with her husband to shutter the hot shop permanently and just focus on her family. Without her art, Claire needs a creative outlet and she finds herself agreeing to co-chair the annual Nantucket Children's Summer Gala a year from the start of the novel. Claire doesn't really know Lock Dixon, the man asking, but she knows Lock's wife Daphne, who had gone out with her on a girls' night one winter and drank too much before getting in a terrible, life-altering accident on her way home. Claire still harbors guilt over letting Daphne drive off rather than making sure she got home safely and she lets her need to atone not only drive her agreement over co-chairing the gala but also in getting her to agree to consider secretly producing a museum quality piece for the gala's auction, despite the lock on her hot shop door. And if that wasn't enough, she also agrees to secure famous rock star Max West, formerly her high school boyfriend Matthew, to play at the gala. All of a sudden, Claire is not only up to her eyeballs in commitment and controversy over gala decisions, but she is fighting with her husband Jason over all of it, metaphorically moving further and further away from him. As she abandons her husband emotionally, she is drawn to Lock and to his support of her needs and wants. And so the two of them embark on a risky and potentially scandalous affair, hidden under the guise of working together on this enormous charitable undertaking. But the novel is not just about the affair. It is also about creativity and the need to express and challenge yourself as Claire does when she starts creating the delicate and impressive chandelier she has envisioned. It is about love and the needs of a partner, family and balance, guilt and atonement, desire and duty. There are a whole host of characters in the novel who swirl around Claire with their own needs, secrets, and agendas, and each of them complicates her decisions. There is so much going on beneath the surface of the community that it's a veritable Peyton Place. Where the troubles faced by all the characters could have been compelling, gambling, embezzling, cognitive impairment, chronic nastiness, etc., they didn't really hum and were negligible compared to Claire's choices. As for Claire and Lock, neither one of them was a particularly appealing character. Claire is wildly emotional, expiring with guilt one moment and sneaking off for furtive sex with Lock the next. Lock is, quite frankly, dull. So their affair, the underlying plot thread throughout the whole story, is not terribly engaging, and not just because of the moral transgression. The ending of the novel is unfinished feeling and surprisingly unemotional but even so, it is a relief to come to it, despite already knowing how it will end, how it must end. Just because Hilderbrand can juggle all the balls she's tossed into the air, doesn't mean they are all necessary to the flourish of this novel. As a beach read, you could do worse but don't be surprised if you don't start rooting for Claire to destroy her own life long before you turn that last page.