Sometimes, when you need a change in your life, the tide just happens to pull you in the right direction…

Ellis, Julia, and Dorie. Best friends since Catholic grade school, they now find themselves, in their mid-thirties, at the crossroads of life and love. Ellis, recently fired from a job she gave everything to, is rudderless and now beginning to question the choices she's made over the past decade of her life. Julia--whose caustic wit covers up her wounds--has a man who loves her and is offering her the world, but she can't hide from how deeply insecure she feels about her looks, her brains, her life. And Dorie has just been shockingly betrayed by the man she loved and trusted the most in the world…though this is just the tip of the iceberg of her problems and secrets. A month in North Carolina's Outer Banks is just what they each of them needs.

Ty Bazemore is their landlord, though he's hanging on to the rambling old beach house by a thin thread. After an inauspicious first meeting with Ellis, the two find themselves disturbingly attracted to one another, even as Ty is about to lose everything he's ever cared about.

Maryn Shackleford is a stranger, and a woman on the run. Maryn needs just a few things in life: no questions, a good hiding place, and a new identity. Ellis, Julia, and Dorie can provide what Maryn wants; can they also provide what she needs?

Mary Kay Andrews' novel is the story of five people questioning everything they ever thought they knew about life. Five people on a journey that will uncover their secrets and point them on the path to forgiveness. Five people who each need a sea change, and one month in a summer rental that might just give it to them.

Summer Rental is one of Library Journal's Best Women's Fiction Books of 2011<

Mary Kay Andrews is the New York Times bestselling author of The Fixer Upper, Deep Dish, Blue Christmas, Savannah Breeze, Hissy Fit, Little Bitty Lies, and Savannah Blues.  A former journalist for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, she lives in Atlanta, Georgia.  Visit www.marykayandrews.com

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“Andrews…is at her warm and funny best…[she] simply excels at creating the kind of characters readers can relate to, and she has a fabulous sense of humor to boot.”

—Library Journal (starred review)

 

“Andrews spins a beach blanket sizzler… This warm weather treat has a lot going for it.”

—Publishers Weekly

 

“[A] tailor-made beach read…another charmer”

—Booklist

 

“…unraveling secrets makes for fascinating reading. This is a perfect beach book: the tale of a sandy, flea-bittensummer house and one month in August in which honesty triumphs over silence, and love over lies. Ellis falls in love, and Dorie meets a new guy, and Julie makes a big decision, and Maryn breaks free… and the readers ofSummer Rental will stay glued to their sandy beach chairs waiting to see what happens next.” 

--Barnes & Noble Review

 

“…this is prime beach-read material”

--Daily Record (Gannett Newspapers)

< 1 It was not an auspicious beginning for a vacation, let alone for a new life. The rain chased her all the way down the East Coast, slashing at the windshield, pounding her car from every angle. Between the backwash from a continuous stream of eighteen-wheelers blowing past her at eighty miles an hour (in contrast to her own sedate fifty-five mph) and violent gusts of wind from the storm, it was all she could do to stay on the roadway.It was her own fault, Ellis decided. She should have stuck to her original plan. She should have gotten up at a sensible hour, at least waiting until daylight to start the drive from Philadelphia to North Carolina. Instead, on some insane impulse, she’d simply locked up the town house and driven off shortly after midnight.It was a most un-Ellis-like decision. But then, her old life, back there in Philly, was gone. And somewhere, on that long drive south, she had subconsciously decided that the seeds of a new life must be waiting, at the beach. In August.Ellis took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders, first forward, and then backwards, trying to work out the kinks from six hours of driving. She reached for the commuter mug of coffee in the Accord’s cup holder and took a long sip, hoping it would clear the fatigue fog.An hour later, she saw the sign: Nags Head, 132 miles. She smiled. The rain had slowed to a light drizzle. She should arrive at the house, which was called Ebbtide, by around seven.Her smile faded. What had she been thinking? Check-in was at 2 P.M., according to the renter’s agreement she’d signed.She composed a mental e-mail t Read Less