Audio book narrated by Kate Marciny.
Released 1st May 2021 Brilliance Audio.
From the cover:
It was a lifetime ago that recently widowed Maggie Flynn was in Wyndham Beach. Now, on the occasion of her fortieth high school reunion, she returns to her hometown on the Massachusetts coast, picking up right where she left off with dear friends Lydia and Emma. But seeing Brett Crawford again stirs other emotions. Once, they were the town’s golden couple destined for one another. He shared Maggie’s dreams―and eventually, a shattering secret that drove them apart.
Buying her old family home and resettling in Wyndham Beach means a chance to start over for Maggie and her two daughters, but it also means facing her rekindled feelings for her first love and finally confronting―and embracing―the past in ways she never thought possible.
Maggie won’t be alone. With her family and friends around her, she can weather this stormy turning point in her life and open her heart to the future. As for that dream shared and lost years ago? If Maggie can forgive herself, it still might come true.
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Although it has been a couple of years since Maggie Flynn lost her husband to terminal illness, it is only now that she is gradually recapturing something of the woman she used to be. Feeling stronger, she decides to attend the 40th anniversary reunion of her high school, back in her home town of Wyndham Beach on the Massachusetts coast. It's a long time since she has been back home and Maggie looks forward to meeting up with her long time friends Emma and Lydia while she is there.
Maggie, Emma and Lydia fall easily back into the rhythm of their friendship. Maggie relishes being back by the ocean after so long, but seeing her high school sweetheart Brett Crawford, who is now Wyndham Beach's town sheriff, stirs up recollections about deep secrets that she would rather forget.
Once Maggie returns home, she can't get Wyndham Beach out of her mind. Perhaps it is time to return to her roots and begin again, but it would mean leaving behind her daughters, granddaughter, and a family home full of memories. Then her eldest daughter's life comes crashing down, and moving to Wyndham Beach is the best way for them all to make a fresh start, even if it means Maggie has to confront what happened with Brett and learn to forgive herself.
An Invincible Summer is a heart-warming story about family, friendship, forgiveness and new beginnings. Maggie is at the centre of the tale, as she decides to return to her home town and the support of her long-time close friends Emma and Lydia, now her life has entered a new phase, even if it means finally coming to terms with the secret only she and Brett know about - the secret that tore them apart.
As we follow Maggie's story, Mariah Stewart weaves a delicious bundle of threads around the three friends, and their children, that explore connection, marriage, love, loss, parenthood, regret and reconciliation. I loved the older female characters in this story, as they are so relatable to a more mature audience, like myself. There is such warmth and humour in their interactions, as three women who have known each other through thick and thin, and I laughed and cried along with them throughout the book. I really enjoyed how Stewart opens this story up by following the lives of the children of these women too.
This is a gentle tale, without bells and whistles, but it explores real life in a way that makes it really compelling. I soon became immersed in the story, pulled in by the excellent narration by Kate Marcin, and shed big fat tears when my time with them was over as glorious feelings of hope for the future washed over me. I will be moving straight on the book two, Goodbye Again, which follows Lydia's story, and cannot wait to return to Wyndham Beach and its residents.
Highly recommended if you like stories with authentic older female characters!
An Invincible Summer is available to buy now in paberback, ebook and audio formats.
About the author:
Mariah Stewart is the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today bestselling author of several series, including The Chesapeake Diaries and The Hudson Sisters, as well as stand-alone novels, novellas, and short stories.
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