For the love of summer

Best-selling author Mallery (The Summer Book Club, 2024) gives readers another amazing novel filled with strong female characters. Erica is a successful businesswoman. On the outside, she appears unshakable, but she fears losing her daughter, Summer, to Summer's other family, specifically stepmom Allison. Summer is a great daughter but is disinterested in Erica's beauty business and calls it frivolous, which often strikes a nerve. Allison has a toddler and is pregnant when her husband, Peter--Erica's ex--is arrested for money laundering. Her accounts are frozen, and she has both an impending due date and moving date, since her rental is being sold. Allison has no money and not many options, and Summer asks Erica to let her move in. To appease her daughter, Erica agrees, and while the situation is awkward initially, the two women become real friends. Allison realizes that her husband has lied about everything for their entire marriage, and her budding friendship with Erica gives her the confidence to begin a life independently from him. Everyone gets something out of this unlikely arrangement. Mallery's emotional novel will have Jill Shalvis fans speeding through and wanting more. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Lovers of heartfelt, breezy relationship fiction will flock to genre legend Mallery's moving latest.