Fun for the whole family A novel

Jennifer E. Smith, 1980-

Book - 2025

"The four Endicott siblings--Gemma, Connor, Roddy, and Jude--were once inseparable, a bond created by the absence of their dazzling, mercurial mother, who would return for a few weeks each summer to whisk them off on sprawling road trips around the country. Decades later, the unthinkable has happened: the Endicotts haven't spoken in years . . . until an out-of-the-blue text arrives from Jude, now a famous actress, summoning them to a small town in North Dakota. They're each at a crossroads: Gemma, who put her own ambitions aside to raise the others, now isn't sure if she wants to be a mother herself; Connor, a celebrated novelist, is floundering after his recent divorce and suffering from an epic case of writer's bl...ock; and Roddy, at the tail end of a professional soccer career, is dangerously close to losing his future husband for the chance at one last season. Jude is the only Endicott who seems to have it all together--but appearances can be deceiving. As the weekend unfolds, and the siblings wrestle with their shared past and uncertain futures, they'll discover that Jude has been keeping three secrets . . . each of which could change everything"--

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FICTION/Smith Jennifer
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Subjects
Genres
Domestic fiction
Novels
Published
New York : Ballantine Books [2025]
Language
English
Main Author
Jennifer E. Smith, 1980- (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
354 pages ; 25 cm
ISBN
9780593358306
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

YA author Smith returns to adult fiction (after The Unsinkable Greta James, 2022) with a layered family drama. The Endicotts--Gemma, Connor, and twins Roddy and Jude--grew up with an absent mother and a distant father. Their mother would return each summer and sweep them away to different destinations, but she was never there for them otherwise. Despite their rocky childhoods, three of the four children became famous, Jude as a movie star, Roddy as anathlete, and Connor as a novelist. Gemma, who essentially raised them all, is satisfied with her quiet life in Chicago. But being in the public eye has its disadvantages, and when Connor writes a novel that exposes the family's past, the siblings' bond falls apart. Now, Jude requests that her three siblings meet her in North Dakota to heal those old wounds. But Jude is hiding her own secrets, which she resolves to confess that weekend. Each sibling receives their own point of view chapters, with flashbacks to different junctures in their lives. They all interact with one another differently to form the complex plot. This novel is a page-turner, and readers will root for each of the siblings despite their shortcomings.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.