A Summer Affair

Nantucket #1

by Elin Hilderbrand

Claire Danner Crispin, mother of four young children and nationally renowned glassblower, bites off more than she can chew when she agrees to co-chair the Nantucket's Children Summer Gala.

Claire is asked to chair the benefit, in part, because she is the former high school sweetheart of rock star Max West. Max agrees to play the gala and it looks like smooth sailing for Claire-until she promises a "museum-quality" piece of glass for the auction, offers her best friend the catering job, goes nose-to-nose with her Manhattan socialite co-chair, and begins a "good-hearted" affair with the charity's Executive Director, Lockhart Dixon.

Hearts break and emotions are pushed to the limit in this riveting story of one woman's attempt to deal with loves past and present, family, business, and high-powered social pressures. Elin Hilderbrand's unique understanding of the joys and longings that animate women's lives will make this her newest summer bestseller.

Genres: Fiction, Romance, Chick Lit, Audiobook, Summer, Beach Reads, Summer Reads

432 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2008

About the author

Elin Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three young children. She grew up in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, and traveled extensively before settling on Nantucket, which has been the setting for her five previous novels. Hilderbrand is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.

Facebook.com/ElinHilderbrand

Pinterest.com/ElinHilderbrand

Reviews

[Heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard for me to give it more stars even though it was compelling to read. I felt weighed down as I read about Claire having an affair with Lock and her seeming lack of concern for how deeply it would effect her children and husband. I think I was more concerned for them than she was! Claire was characterized as the "good person," but I found it hard to see her as anything but selfish. Her husband was shown as flawed, but I saw him as the better person because despite his flaws he was a family man thru and thru who supported his family, loved his children, and thought his wife was really attractive and that to me was WAY more attractive than the namby pamby Lock. I never did understand what was so compelling about Lock that she would risk the life she had to spend snippets of time with a guy who did not have her best interest at heart. Is this what people do in real life? I was glad when the book was done so I could quit feeling so heavy with the guilt I thought Claire should have felt.

[Brady Lockerby · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 - My 50th book of the year! This one took me over halfway get into and the long chapters did not help! The ending made up for it, but overall not my fave! Onto the next in the Nantucket series!

[chantalsbookstuff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alright, folks, here’s the scoop: I’m giving this book a generous 3 stars. Why? Let’s dive in!

Plot Drama: The main plot is all about adultery. Not my favorite theme, honestly. It’s like watching a soap opera unfold with all the drama but not much depth.

Entertainment Factor: Despite my reservations about the plot, the story didn’t completely suck. It kept me entertained and held my focus. I mean, I didn’t binge-read it, but it wasn’t a snooze fest either.

Main Character: Claire, our leading lady, didn’t win me over. I just couldn’t connect with her. She felt a bit bland and made some questionable choices.

Supporting Cast: Jason, Claire’s husband, wasn’t much better. Let’s just say he didn’t make the list of my favorite book characters.

Bright Spot: The building of the Gala was a highlight! The scenes and descriptions of this event were vivid and engaging. It added a nice touch of glamour and intrigue to the story.

Author’s Talent: Elin is undeniably a talented writer. Her storytelling skills are what kept me turning the pages. Because of her writing prowess, I stuck around and finished the book.

So, there you have it! If you’re into drama and can overlook a few unlikable characters, this might just be your cup of tea. Happy reading! 📚✨

[Jennefer · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Summer Affair was a good enough read but not one of my favorites by this author. It was a page turner but not because it was THAT GOOD but because I was apprehensive about where the story was going to go and to find out what was going to be the final outcome.

I was having a hard time relating to the main character, Claire, a mother of 4 and wife to a husband that seems absolutely wonderful with his only downfall being that he watches a little too much TV rather than talk to her. I couldn't find it in me to root for her character. I just wanted to shake her and say what are you doing you crazy woman? The affair seemed contrived and unrealistic. I found it odd that they were together for almost a year and yet her husband never got suspicious at all.

I did adore the best friend/sister in law character and felt bad for her in regards to certain aspects of her life. The Matthew "Max" West part of the story was a sweet tribute to her childhood and first love and I did enjoy that aspect of the story also. Overall, I wouldn't overly recommend this book. The writing was very good, but the story, not so much. Many times I finish a book wanting more, wishing that there was another book about the same characters so I can see what happens next in their lives, but with A Summer Affair I could care less I just wanted it to end. However, it did end very abruptly. I expected an epilogue or something since there were several loose ends - what happened to Gavin - did he blow the whistle on Lock? What about Siobhan and Carter - did they work things out? I just wanted a little closure on the characters. Elin Hilderbrand has a lot of great novels this just isn’t one of my favorites or one of her best. Happy reading my friends and happiest of holidays to you all!

[Clare · Rating 1 out of 5]

What the hell!? Can’t married people just stay faithful?

It may be my book choices lately, but I seem to be reading way too many books where married parents have affairs. Not only does it enrage me, but it saddens me too. Yes, parenting is hard, and so is staying married, but if you put half as much work into your marriage as you do the affair, you wouldn’t have to have the affair.

And that’s what I felt like shouting at the main character, when Claire starts having an affair with the organizer of Nantucket's charity auction. Suddenly, Claire is having late night "meetings" about the auction which instead are clandestine sex-capades.

Claire's husband Jason is treated with no dignity, even by the author. We are all left wondering why Claire is married and stayed married to him, which theoretically is supposed to make the affair okay. Her lover, Lock, encourages Claire to create a beautiful museum quality piece of stained glass. Claire gave up creating anything after she got dehydrated and delivered her son 6 weeks prematurely. Claire subsequently threw herself into mothering her other three children and worrying about her son, whom she thinks is developmentally delayed. Her guilt over her accident and her son's slow development means she has not been in her studio for 8 months. The contrast between Lock, who encourages her to create, and Jason, who puts a lock on her studio, is a cheap literary trick meant to justify the affair.

The book slowly builds up to the charity event, with some characters thrown in who don't really enhance the story (Claire's best friend is the caterer, married to Claire's BIL, who has a gambling problem. The accountant is embezzling.) And having Claire's high school boyfriend, who is now a superstar musician, be the headliner at the event stretches credibility, especially when he asks Claire to leave her kids and run off with him. How did this book get published?

I think what made this even more ridiculous is that the affair ends so mildly, with NO consequences, and no one finds out. Not his wife, not her husband. Lock and Claire just kind of agree to end the affair and Claire goes back to her husband, in effect saying, "Hmm. That was a nice break."

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elin Hilderbrand is one of my favorite authors and I always enjoy her summer beach reads set on Nantucket. In A SUMMER AFFAIR, Claire is asked by Locke, a local billionaire who runs a children’s charity, to co-chair the yearly summer gala. When she agrees, they start having an affair.

I found the cast of characters to be terribly interesting. I loved the descriptions of the setting, the foods, and the day-to-day details of the character’s lives. The author always does a fabulous job with descriptions as well as making you feel like you’re really on Nantucket. I thought having Claire, the main character, be a glassblower, was an especially cool touch. These characters had so many problems that were so intricately twisted up within their histories with each other that it made for a really juicy story. I particularly enjoyed the sister-in-law/best friends relationship between Claire and Siobhan.

This book contains a lot of cheating by multiple prominent characters in the story, including Claire, who has four young children at home. I really like Elin Hilderbrand, think she’s an amazing writer and I found the novel to be an interesting character study. I listened to the audiobook version and couldn’t wait to come back and read a little more each night. That said, if infidelity is a plotline you aren’t crazy about, you may want to skip this one.

[Taury · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand This was more like a 3.5. One of the authors better “soap opera” books. There was lots of drama, hysterics, relationship woes, affairs, hyped up rich people and super stars. Odd ending. Oh come on book 2. I will be sucked back into another very fast paced read!

[Kyle Moore · Rating 1 out of 5]

Speaking of trainwrecks...

When I first saw the cover of the book, I assumed it was going to be some innocent summer romance, but no. This was anything but, and halfway through, I just... I just could not read anymore.

The main character, Claire Danner Crispin, was supposed to be a devoted Catholic... and yet she is worse than many of the atheists that I know. Mainly because, she just slept with some random guy that she in reality barely knew, someone that was not as cool as her husband (who I thought was actually a pretty good person), and didn't even try to control herself.

Another thing was for a good time in the book it was in one point of view, but then suddenly it changes to another, and then to another, and so on and so forth, creating plot lines and adding things that should never have been added. It drove me insane.

So yeah... it bothered me a lot. So much that I stopped reading right in the middle of the story. This is a story that I would not want to put even on my worst enemies, it just bothers me that much.

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can generally enjoy a book regardless of the likability of the characters - in fact, unlikable characters often make a book more interesting. But Claire, the main character in this book, was unbelievably annoying. She had a guilt complex, no backbone, and very little personality. She never let anything go, which means we had to read about her guilt triggers over and over and over.

As far as other characters went, the book often overly focused on their flaws as well, which meant there was pretty much no one to like - on top of which everyone kept making bad decisions.

The worst part was the way Hilderbrand kept bringing up characters' physical and/or personal grooming flaws. I could see she was trying to show there's more to attraction and love than physicality, but she drove it home a little too often. We get it. He's paunchy and balding and she is unkempt and always wearing yoga pants.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure I was going to like this book. I usually don't like books that are centered around adultery - not because I feel morally judgy about infidelity but because everyone else in the books seem to be. I live in a culture that is still very prudish and based on Christian values of right and wrong, which I hate, but this is the country my parents chose for us to live in, and here I still am (at least until next week). And in this culture, monogamy is valued - at least in public, but I suspect many people are having affairs for real or affairs in their hearts and minds even if not physical or real, and as Jesus said, even thinking about it makes it real (which, adorably, Jimmy Carter confessed to - that made him such a lovely human to me). This means characters and people all pretend like they think philandering is repugnant, which reeks of hypocrisy for me, and that's why I don't usually like these books. However, I have read several books by Hilderbrand, and I have liked most of them. So I gave this a chance, and I'm glad I did.

I've always said that I will hold people accountable to their standards and not mine. I am only responsible for meeting my own, and I think the same of everyone else - they should be held to theirs. Turns out, I'm a bit of weirdo for this - at least in comparison to those in the book. Seems they assume everyone has the same set of morals and that they should all be required to follow those generally assumed social mores. We are all human and the tests of our integrity are what defines the strength of our humanity. That's what this book was really about. The adultery was really just the literary tool to explore the thin fabrics that hold together marriages, "friendships," family, and societal agreements for what is necessarily normal. I thought Hilderbrand did a good job of that, including those of the supporting and minor characters.

Rounding up to 4.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

In all fairness, I only read the first 50 pages of this book, and I would've never picked this book up if it weren't for it being a Book Club choice. That being said, the whole premise of this book disgusts me. The title. The cover. The synopsis on the back. The first 50 pages. A woman "who has everything", but is dissatisfied with her husband (the way the author writes about this poor dude is appalling), decides to have an affair with a billionaire. Ack. How can this possibly be interesting for over 400 pages? Call me old fashioned, but I don't want to read about someone who so flippantly disregards her marriage. No connection with this character whatsoever. Guess I'll need to read the summary now so I can discuss this at my face to face bookclub meeting. Boo.

[Lisa Leone-campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Claire and her husband Jason live on Nantucket Island. Jason owns a company and Claire is a well-known glassblower artist. They have four children and although not one of the very rich elite, lives pretty comfortably. She is a cautious happy, always trying to make sure everyone else is ok.

Locke Dixon, a wealthy resident is the head of a local charity called Nantucket's Children which is an organization that assists the children of the locals who live on the Island all year. When Locke asks Claire to chair the Nantucket Children's major gala the following year, the sole fundraiser which keeps the charity afloat, Claire, against her husband's wishes says yes, and thus begins a summer affair.

Claire and Locke quickly start a relationship which begins to tear Claire apart. Always a pleaser, Claire also agrees to not only make a glass blown chandelier to auction off at the gala, but to try and get her high school sweetheart turned mega rock star Max West who she has not seen in twenty years to perform a concert at the event.

As Claire's marriage suffers, and pressure to make this fundraiser a success, the closer the day comes the more Claire's life spirals out of control. The day of the gala, which should go without a hitch turns into a disaster, which some people are thrilled about. As Claire suddenly realizes the importance of family, love and self-esteem, will it be too late to put the pieces of her life back together? Does she even want to?

We learn no one really knows what goes on behind closed doors and although someone may look put together, facades are common and sometimes no one sees the true heartbreak people really endure. And heartbreak can come in all forms...

The title takes on many meanings throughout this enlightening book.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am so completely done with this. I haven't finished and you can't make me. This book is about terrible people who are terrible to each other. I don't need to love every book character out there, but this book is filled with a bunch of annoying classist and slightly racist mean girls and I can't even. I wish I could give this negative stars.

[Bridget · Rating 1 out of 5]

The subject matter is mostly what earned the 1 star here. The main character, Claire, has a beautiful life - a husband that loves her (in his own way) and four lovely children. So why does she put it all on the line for an affair with an older, wealthy man? Not once during the entire novel did I feel any compassion for her. She willingly, and repeatedly, lied to her husband and her friends about her wherabouts so that she could sneak off with this man who was also married. Their behavior was despicable. I should have stopped earlier on but I thought Hilderbrand was going to use this philandering nonsense to make a point, which I guess she sort of did on the last few pages, but it wasn't clear enough. Claire and Lock had this wicked affair for almost a year, then it's over in a matter of seconds as Claire says, "I need you to let me go," and they both go back to their respective lives and their spouses never know any different. This didn't sit well with me AT ALL. Claire's glass chandeliere that she crafted in her hot shop (she's a glass blower) is 'accidentally' smashed at the end of the novel and maybe that's supposed to represent what could have happened to her life had she continued with the affair. But I felt Hilderbrand didn't do enough to show the flip side of an affair - the turmoil and consequences that people indirectly involved (children, spouses) have to suffer due to the selfish acts of the two people having the affair. This novel almost glorifies her behavior when the novel ends and she still hasn't told her husband the truth about her behavior. That totally bothered me.

[Kyrah Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elin is now my favorite author 🥲🫶

[jo 🏹]

Dnf @ 40% all I learned was that being a wife and having kids will make me miserable. So miserable I’ll cheat on my handsome husband with a pudgy balding billionaire?? OH BUT SHE LOVES HER LIFE? Also why did she have so many children ?!!!!!! All she needed to do was communicate with her husband.

[Tasha Metzler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m struggling to rate this. Maybe give it 3.5 bc I kept going because I had to know how it all wrapped up. There were a handful I just wanted to punch in the throat though…. And the carelessness omg 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

[Syndi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Summer Affair is not really hit the right spot for me. The characters are too many and difficult to follow all of them. The story and the plot are good. But again, too complicated

3 stars

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book I have been waiting to read since learning of its publication. I discovered the author two years ago and read through her previously written books within a few weeks relishing each one. The relationship of the wealthy summer residents to the local residents and maintaining the integrity of Nantucket's beauty and history are aspects of the books that are always of interest to me. While I like the internal conflicts of her main characters, their gutsiness and longings, the main character here jumps into an affair ten minutes into the book, which just didn't seem necessary within the larger context of the novel. I found the running around and the necessary deceits mundane and exhausting; are there new, compelling truths learned from affairs, however brief? A wonderful aspect, however, of this novel is that the main character is an artist, working with glass and designing the most important piece of art in her life. These descriptions are vivid and serve as a metaphor for the challenges of the main character.

[Charlotte Maxwell · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated every sentence of this book.

[Shantha (ShanthasBookEra) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars Better than I thought it would be given the affair. The characters make mistakes, but through her expert storytelling, you understand their decisions.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to finally start making my way through more of Elin Hilderbrand's backlist, and while now I am going to go back to the very beginning (6 books ago), A Summer Affair was still a good place to be. While this isn’t my favorite by the author and it is generally full of not very likeable characters, it was still an engrossing read that brought Nantucket to life. You get that feeling of small-town gossip where everyone knows everything, mixed with tough decisions, people finding themselves, and even a dash of crime! I loved that Claire was a glassblower and that part of the book amidst all the drama was probably my favorite part. The book focuses on multiple characters including Claire’s sister-in-law Siobhan and Claire’s friend turned famous rocker Max West. I enjoyed the various viewpoints, and I loved how no-nonsense Siobhan was. She was my favorite character by far, though I did find her to be a bit judgmental of Claire (not that it isn’t relatable because it is!).

The audiobook was okay for me, and I didn’t love Isabel Keating’s narration. I did love her voice and could have listened to her forever, but her actual narration was very stilted with oddly long pauses, and it was just not great. I think I would have gone with reading A Summer Affair knowing that, but it didn’t affect my rating of the book itself. I was a bit thrown off by the exceedingly long chapters (especially seeing them that way on the audiobook), but that didn’t end up bothering me. I did enjoy the way they were titled and how each title applied to the chapter as well. There was quite a bit going on in the storyline, but I would call it a slow burn overall. It would be a good read for a long day at the beach or as a patio read with a glass of white! Despite the unlikeable characters and bad behavior, A Summer Affair was worth the read and I really enjoyed it!

[Rene Glendening · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly, I'm dissapointed. I didn't think I ever would be with a Hilderbrand book but I find myself stunned. Most likely, a combination of things gives me the opinion of distaste. I couldn't really relate with any of the characters in this book and they all made me mad at some point. The main character, Claire is a mother of four and is a professional Glass Blower. I have no idea what that entails and when the story got into her work I was lost. It was interesting though I just wish I knew what half the terms were and how it all worked. The major let down that the book revolved around was the affair Claire was having with the Director of the Gala she was co-chairing for the year. I was so annoyed and angry at this that I just felt disgusted throughout the rest of the book. I just couldn't get over that someone with a great life, 4 beautiful kids, a good husband and everything she could ever ask for would have such a pointless affair. She wasn't even attracted to him! And only after a few months they are saying "I love you's" to each other? Please.

[Gina · Rating 2 out of 5]

My least favorite book by this author. I felt no connection to the characters and the guy she was having an affair with seemed old and "icky" to me.

[Emily Riser · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 ⭐️- Another Elin book that I really enjoyed. She just brings the Nantucket vibes so well. I’m loving her books so much, I just feel so comfy and at home when I read her books. This one definitely had the drama, stress, high stakes, illicit romance and I thought it worked well. If you don’t like cheating in your books, it should be pretty obvious, but don’t read this one. It doesn’t bother me. I love the drama lol. I did get a bit annoyed with the FMC in like the last third of the book but other than that, a very solid Elin beach read. On to the next one!

[☕️Hélène⚜️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buddy read on Instagram @gingerbookclub.
Not my favourite Elin Hildebrand. Didn’t like any of the characters they we’re all into themselves. Gavin had nothing to do with the story. The part I couldn’t stand was the long chapters I am not a fan at all of authors making long chapters.
I say an ok! Read but nothing much. Hope my other reads will be better! The Winter series I loved!
Read it to make your own opinion.

[rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been spending almost every weekend poolside this summer, since temperatures have been in the 90s for weeks in PA and there aren't really safe going out options right now. With the weight of everything happening in the world, I wanted to intersperse some of my (emotionally) heavier reading options with some escapist beach books. Elin Hilderbrand seemed like a natural choice for that, given Zach's love for her and her reputation for writing women's fiction where the characters might be wealthy and living on lobster salad and tanned to a crisp, but are also complicated and sometimes difficult.

I chose this book in particular because on an extended family vacation at the Jersey shore about 10 years ago, my dad and sister and I - having had a few drinks - discovered that my sweet Jesus-loving Nana was reading something called A Summer Affair. While she was in the shower, we paged through it for the implied steamy parts and performed dramatic readings of lines such as "Claire gazed at the wall next to Gavin's desk. Only eighteen hours earlier, Lock Dixon had pressed her up against that wall" and "his dick was a shaft of glowing steel". My sister and I laughed so hard we cried. My poor Nana never knew it happened.

While there is a lot of nostalgia and thought put into my decision to read A Summer Affair, the book itself did not meet my high entertainment expectations. The main reason for this is that the affair itself seemed like an oddly ambivalent, minimized occurrence even though the main characters do experience some emotional turmoil about it. I think this is because all secondary characters get their inner worlds featured in the book too, plus we need all of the beachy lifestyle details, and it all sort of overshadows the moral murkiness of the infidelity after a while. (In no way is this affair ambivalence better evidenced than by the fact that at the end of the book, Claire ends her affair and goes back to the toolish husband she has little in common with except for a great sex life, and is implied to live happily ever after with him. Ew.) There is so much going on in this book that all of it seems to mean about as much as what the tent setup looks like at the Nantucket Children's gala.

There was a moment in this book where Claire's return to glassblowing (after giving up her art to focus on being a mother, and getting encouraged back into it by LOCK. DIXON.) is likened to an alcoholic taking a sip or "a junkie" about to shoot up. I laughed out loud at the wild wrongness and drama of it. My sister happened to be hanging out by the pool at a social distance with me while I read and asked what was so funny. "Becca," I said, "You've got to hear this..."

[Corey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Part of why I enjoy other novels by Elin is because despite having flawed characters, they are still often likable. A Summer Affair however is rife with characters that are flawed, unlikeable and very two dimensional. The lead character, Claire, we're supposed to 'root' for despite her affair and yet I kept rooting for her to get caught because way too much came too easily to her and she seemed to not appreciate anything. Sure, her husband was painting to be pretty callous but did he really deserve to be cheated on? Siobahn, Claire's sister in law, is another POV in the novel and another person we're supposed to be pulling for even though she's mad at Claire and yet she's such a jealous bitty that I didn't feel much sympathy for her either (really, mad over PEARLS?). There are more characters in the novel but all of them are flawed and uninteresting (Gavin most definitely). It seems like everyone is cheating on everyone without being caught or any major revelations due to it.

While I did finish the book, it's not one I'd recommend to others. Definitely not Elin's best work.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like Elin Hilderbrand's books. I grew up on the Jersey shore, I've been to Wildwood Crest. Love the beach settings. The family dynamics.

The characters are really different, well developed, interesting. I liked Claire, I got Claire. I loved the way the affair was described emotionally, the euphoria, the guilt, the lack of guilt, then the judgement. Claire's glass blowing was a very different career to have, and it was definitely an asset to the story. As a lover of all things food, I also enjoyed Siobhan and her catering company.

My only criticism. I didn't really need the Max character. Of course, I didn't write the book so it's really none of my business. I assume he was there to remind Claire what she was before her marriage, and the affair. But he didn't add much to the story (for me).

This was a good read, and I'd recommend to anyone who is a lover of beachy stories, with depth and heart.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is compulsively readable, but a majority of the characters are unlikeable