A Tale of Family, Wealth and Sex, With a Bombshell Reckoning
In her memoir, 'Small Fry,' Lisa Brennan-Jobs writes about one of her earliest meetings with her father, the Apple founder Steve Jobs. She was 3. 'I'm your father,' he told her. 'I'm one of the most important people you will ever know.'
The aftershocks of fathers — particularly ones as seismic as Jobs — rumble through Sarah MacLean's new novel: a gripping inheritance drama, wrapped around a swoony summer romance, that offers a nuanced portrait of a family grappling with secrets, privilege and grief.
MacLean has spent the last 15 years honing her skills as a best-selling author of historical romance. Many of her trademarks are on display here: a determined, bighearted heroine; a tall, gruff and handsome love interest; the perfectly calibrated doses of laugh-out-loud banter and piping-hot intimacy that build to a deliciously satisfying finish.
'These Summer Storms' is her first contemporary novel. And what a joy it is to see how, as she shucks off the corsets and cravats, she uses her new breathing room to full advantage. The upper-crust New England world of this book is as well imagined as any of her Regency romances, and she fills it with even more complex characters, plot twists and intrigue — weaving it together with propulsive finesse. It's like discovering the lead guitarist of your favorite band is also a concert pianist.
We meet our heroine, Alice, on the day her father, Franklin Storm — a daredevil tech billionaire — dies in a gliding accident. Alice has been estranged from her family for five years, but she is heading (defiantly via Amtrak, not the family helicopter) to their private island off the coast of Rhode Island to mourn.
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