Book picks similar to
In the Summertime by Judy Astley


3-read-again
european-uk
genre-drama
genre-romance-womens

The Trouble with Rose


Amita Murray - 2019
    A broken heart.A whole lot of trouble…Perfect for fans of Marian Keyes, The Trouble with Rose is an unforgettable story about a messy family, a big secret at its heart, and the unbreakable bond between sisters.Rilla is getting married. Except she isn't. She's running away – from her confused fiancé Simon, her big mad family, and the memories nipping at her heels.Her sister Rose would know what to do in such times of crisis.But the trouble is, Rose is the crisis. She disappeared years ago, and Rilla's heart went missing too.Where is Rose? And who is Rilla without Rose?If she's to rescue some happiness out of all this chaos, she needs to find out.

It Started With Goodbye


Christina June - 2017
    After being falsely accused of a crime, she’s stuck under stepmother-imposed house arrest and her BFF’s gone ghost. Tatum fills her newfound free time with community service by day and working at her covert graphic design business at night (which includes trading emails with a cute cello-playing client). When Tatum discovers she’s not the only one in the house keeping secrets, she finds she has the chance to make amends with her family and friends. Equipped with a new perspective, and assisted by her feisty step-abuela-slash-fairy-godmother, Tatum is ready to start fresh and maybe even get her happy ending along the way.

Finding Mr. Brightside


Jay Clark - 2015
    They've lived down the street from each other their whole lives. But they don't really know each other—at least, not until Juliette's mom and Abram's dad have a torrid affair that culminates in a deadly car crash. Sharing the same subdivision is uncomfortable, to say the least. They don't speak.Fast-forward to the neighborhood pharmacy, a year later. Abram decides to say hello. Then he decides to invite Juliette to Taco Bell.To her surprise as well as his, she agrees. And the real love story begins.

Love & Gelato


Jenna Evans Welch - 2016
    She’s only there because it was her mother’s dying wish that she get to know her father. But what kind of father isn’t around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is go back home.But then she is given a journal that her mom had kept when she lived in Italy. Suddenly Lina’s uncovering a magical world of secret romances, art, and hidden bakeries. A world that inspires her, along with the ever-so-charming Ren, to follow in her mother’s footsteps and unearth a secret that has been kept for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything she knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.

She's Faking It


Kristin Rockaway - 2020
    Then again, she isn’t too sure what those dreams are. After dropping out of college, she’s living a pretty chill life in the surf community of Pacific Beach, San Diego…if “chill” means delivering food as a GrubGetter, and if it means “uneventful”.But when Bree starts a new Instagram account — @breebythesea — one of her posts gets a signal boost from none other than wildly popular self-help guru Demi DiPalma, owner of a lifestyle brand empire. Suddenly, Bree just might be a rising star in the world of Instagram influencing. Is this the direction her life has been lacking? It’s not a career choice she’d ever seriously considered, but maybe it’s a sign from the universe. After all, Demi’s the real deal… right?Everything is lining up for Bree: life goals, career, and even a blossoming romance with the chiseled guy next door, surf star Trey Cantu. But things are about to go sideways fast, and even the perfect filter’s not gonna fix it. Instagram might be free, but when your life looks flawless on camera, what’s the cost?

Strangers and Cousins


Leah Hager Cohen - 2019
    A marriage ceremony at their beloved, rambling home should be the happiest of occasions, but Walter and Bennie have a secret. A new community has moved to Rundle Junction, threatening the social order and forcing Bennie and Walter to confront uncomfortable truths about the lengths they would go to maintain harmony.Meanwhile, Aunt Glad, the oldest member of the family, arrives for the wedding plagued by long-buried memories of a scarring event that occurred when she was a girl in Rundle Junction. As she uncovers details about her role in this event, the family begins to realize Clem’s wedding may not be exactly what it seemed. Clever, passionate, artistic Clem has her own agenda. What she doesn’t know is that by the end, everyone will have roles to play in this richly-imagined ceremony of familial connection - a brood of quirky relatives, effervescent college friends, ghosts emerging from the past, a determined little mouse, and even the very group of new neighbors whose presence has shaken Rundle Junction to its core.With Strangers and Cousins, Leah Hager Cohen delivers a story of pageantry and performance, hopefulness and growth, and introduces a winsome, unforgettable cast of characters whose lives are forever changed by events that unfold and reverberate across generations.

Coming Up Roses


Rachael Lucas - 2015
    After a turbulent few months, a spot of quiet in the countryside is just what she needs. A shoulder to cry on wouldn't go amiss either - so when Daisy comes across Elaine and Jo, she breathes a sigh of relief. But her new friends are dealing with dramas of their own… As Daisy wrestles the garden into something resembling order, her feelings for handsome Irishman George begin to take root. Daisy’s heart’s desire − her parent’s garden − is under threat, and Daisy's forced to confront nosey neighbours and fight greedy developers. Village life is turning out to be far from peaceful.

The Art of Lainey


Paula Stokes - 2014
    And that’s when the girls stumble across a copy of The Art of War. With just one glance, they're sure they can use the book to lure Jason back into Lainey’s arms. So Lainey channels her inner warlord, recruiting spies to gather intel and persuading her coworker Micah to pose as her new boyfriend to make Jason jealous. After a few "dates", it looks like her plan is going to work! But now her relationship with Micah is starting to feel like more than just a game.What's a girl to do when what she wants is totally different from what she needs? How do you figure out the person you're meant to be with if you're still figuring out the person you're meant to be?

Amber Scott Is Starting Over


Ruth Saberton - 2012
    Even if Ed doesn't take her job seriously (as a solicitor, he doesn't have much time for women's magazines), it is Amber's dream job. So Ed's news that he has taken a job in the West Country turns Amber's world upside down. The new life in Cornwall does not get off to the best start. The huge house Ed was so into is, well, huge—what is Amber going to do with four acres?And when a handsome, if surly, man leads the local hunt over her land, it's more than Amber can stand. So how is it that, before long Amber is friends with the local eccentric Lady of the Manor, making love potions at her mother's recommendation, and answering the door naked to strangers?

Tiny Acts of Love


Lucy Lawrie - 2014
    Lawyer and new mum Cassie has a husband who converses mainly through jokes, a best friend on the other side of the world, and a taskforce of Babycraft mothers who make her feel she has about as much maternal aptitude as a jellyfish. Husband Jonathan dismisses Cassie's maternal anxieties, but is he really paying attention to his struggling wife? He's started sleep talking and it seems there's more on his mind than he's letting on. Then sexy, swaggering ex-boyfriend Malkie saunters into Cassie's life again. Unlike Jonathan, he 'gets' her. He'd like to get her into bed again too... And on top of all her emotional turmoil, she also finds herself advising a funeral director on ghost protocol and becomes involved in an act of hotel spa fraud, never mind hiding cans of wasp spray all over the house to deal with the stalker who seems to be lurking everywhere she looks. Marriage and motherhood isn't the fairytale Cassie thought it would be. Will her strange new world fall apart around her or will tiny acts of love be enough to get her through? Funny, perceptive and real, Tiny Acts of Love portrays the rawness of motherhood, the flipside of love and the powerful lure of paths not taken.

Proof of Forever


Lexa Hillyer - 2015
    Joy, Tali, Luce, and Zoe knew their final summer at Camp Okahatchee would come to an end, but they swore they’d stay friends.After: Now, two years later, their bond has faded along with those memories.Then: That is, until the fateful flash of a photo booth camera transports the four of them back in time, to the summer they were fifteen—the summer everything changed.Now: The girls must recreate the past in order to return to the present. As they live through their second-chance summer, the mystery behind their lost friendship unravels, and a dark secret threatens to tear the girls apart all over again.Always: Summers end. But this one will change them forever.

Ten Beach Road


Wendy Wax - 2011
    They each wake up one morning to discover their life savings have vanished, along with their trusted financial manager- leaving them with nothing but co-ownership of a ramshackle beachfront house.Throwing their lots in together, they take on the challenge of restoring the historic property. But just as they begin to reinvent themselves and discover the power of friendship, secrets threaten to tear down their trust-and destroy their lives a second time.

The Year We Turned Forty


Liz Fenton - 2016
    This time around, she’s determined to bury the secret of Lucas’ paternity, and to repair the fissures that sent her wandering the first time. Gabriela regrets that she wasted her most fertile years in hot pursuit of a publishing career. Yes, she’s one of the biggest authors in the world, but maybe what she really wanted to create was a family. With a chance to do it again, she’s focused on convincing her husband, Colin, to give her the baby she desires. Claire is the only one who has made peace with her past: her twenty-two year old daughter, Emily, is finally on track after the turmoil of adolescence, and she's recently gotten engaged, with the two carat diamond on her finger to prove it. But if she’s being honest, Claire still fantasizes about her own missed opportunities: a chance to bond with her mother before it was too late, and the possibility of preventing her daughter from years of anguish. Plus, there’s the man who got away—the man who may have been her one true love. But it doesn’t take long for all three women to learn that re-living a life and making different decisions only leads to new problems and consequences—and that the mistakes they made may, in fact, have been the best choices of all…

I'll Meet You There


Heather Demetrios - 2015
    But after graduation, the only thing separating Skylar from art school is three months of summer…until Skylar’s mother loses her job, and Skylar realizes her dreams may be slipping out of reach.Josh had a different escape route: the Marines. But after losing his leg in Afghanistan, he returns home, a shell of the cocksure boy he used to be.What brings Skylar and Josh together is working at the Paradise—a quirky motel off California’s Highway 99. Despite their differences, their shared isolation turns into an unexpected friendship and, soon, something deeper.Compelling and ultimately hopeful, this is a powerful examination of love, loss, and resilience.

A Cup of Ambition


Cathy Bramley - 2017
    So what if she isn’t married and settled like her sister? A relationship would only get in the way of this workaholic’s hectic schedule!So when she unexpectedly finds herself at a loose end for a month, Rosie keeps busy by helping her Italian nonna serve espressos and biscotti at the Lemon Tree Café, a little slice of Italy nestled in the rolling hills of Derbyshire.Worryingly though, the café’s fortunes seem to have taken a turn for the worse since Rosie last went home. But with Nonna blind to the truth and angry at the idea of anyone interfering, the two are soon at loggerheads.However, just when Rosie decides it’s time to head back to reality, an old acquaintance suddenly reappears, and the prospect of life at the Lemon Tree Café begins to seem more appetizing . . .