Skip to content
Responsive image
Vendor
Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Weblink
JenniferWeiner.com

THAT SUMMER

Jennifer Weiner

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Summer comes another timely and deliciously twisty novel of intrigue, secrets, and the transformative power of female friendship.
Daisy Shoemaker can't sleep. With a thriving cooking business, full schedule of volunteer work, and a beautiful home in the Philadelphia suburbs, she should be content. But her teenage daughter can be a handful, her husband can be distant, her work can feel trivial, and she has lots of acquaintances, but no real friends. Still, Daisy knows she's got it good. So why is she up all night?

While Daisy tries to identify the root of her dissatisfaction, she's also receiving misdirected emails meant for a woman named Diana Starling, whose email address is just one punctuation mark away from her own. While Daisy's driving carpools, Diana is chairing meetings. While Daisy's making dinner, Diana's making plans to reorganize corporations. Diana's glamorous, sophisticated, single-lady life is miles away from Daisy's simpler existence. When an apology leads to an invitation, the two women meet and become friends. But, as they get closer, we learn that their connection was not completely accidental. Who IS this other woman, and what does she want with Daisy?

From the manicured Main Line of Philadelphia to the wild landscape of the Outer Cape, written with Jennifer Weiner's signature wit and sharp observations, That Summer is a story about surviving our pasts, confronting our futures, and the sustaining bonds of friendship.

Jennifer Weiner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of seventeen books, including Big Summer, Mrs. Everything, the children's book The Littlest Bigfoot, and an essay collection, Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing. A graduate of Princeton University and contributor to the New York Times Opinion section, Jennifer lives with her family in Philadelphia.
Available products
Book

Published 2021-05-11

Comments

Daisy Shoemaker spends her life catering to her husband, Hal, 12 years her senior, and their 15- year-old daughter, Beatrice, who just got kicked out of Hal's tony boarding-school alma mater and is overflowing with teenage disdain for her ineffectual mother. Daisy teaches ad hoc cooking lessons, but her life mostly revolves around her family. So when an email mix-up puts her in touch with Diana Starling and the two hit it off, she is thrilled at the prospect of making an actual adult friend. But Diana isn't who she says she is, and she has deliberately thrown herself into Daisy's orbit to attempt to reconcile her past. Spurred on by the #MeToo movement, the characters explore the weight that victims of sexual assault carry, and the damage left in the wake of unchecked privilege. But there is also a warmth to the novel, fueled by the Cape Cod setting and deft characterization. Daisy is a classic Weiner heroine, an underappreciated and unconfident woman who grows wings; Beatrice is endearingly strong-willed; and Diana is heartbreakingly sympathetic. Weiner's storytelling skill is such that she paints an uncompromising, complicated portrait of the insidious dangers of the patriarchy that is also a lot of fun to read. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Weiner's latest is a summer banger with a ripped-from-the-headlines plot, which is sure to garner lots of attention.

UK: Piatkus/ LB UK

Weiner's latest is a summer banger with a ripped-from-the-headlines plot, which is sure to garner lots of attention.