Truly a delight of a book and perfect for Summer reading. It has everything a great beach read needs, interesting characters, gorgeous settings, romance and just the right amount of angst. So grab a towel and head to the pool, beach or easy chair with this one. Definitely 5 star worthy. ( )

4.5 stars.

Summer Hours by Amy Mason Doan is a heartfelt novel of friendship, secrets and love.

In the mid 1990s, Rebecca "Becc" Reardon, Eric Logan and Serra Indrijo are best friends who are graduating from high school. Becc has big dreams of becoming a journalist and she is the winner of a prestigious scholarship for Berkeley University. Serra is an artist and she, too, is going to college at Berkeley. Eric is struggling with his parents' recent divorce and he leaves early for Brown University which is on the east coast. Becc is brokenhearted over a rift between her and Eric but she remains hopeful they can resume their close friendship. She and Serra form a tight bond with their college roommate, Maggie, but they keenly feel Eric's absence. Despite efforts to reconnect, Becc remains on the outs with Eric and she evidently makes a fateful choice that will continue to reverberate years later.

Fast forward to 2008 and Becc's life has not exactly gone as she once envisioned. Seizing on an upcoming wedding, she hopes a carefully planned road trip will provide an opportunity to fix a problem she created. Nothing goes as planned and exhausted and frustrated, Becc is a lot more honest than she expected. Will this hurt or harm her chance to mend the pain her long choices has wrought?

Seamlessly moving back and forth in time, Summer Hours is an utterly captivating novel. The characters are realistically and vibrantly developed. The various settings are richly detailed and serve as vivid backdrops for the unfolding story. With a wide variety of movie and music references, Amy Mason Doan creates a perfectly nostalgic vibe that will absolutely charm readers. I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend this poignant and endearing novel.
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Amy Mason Doan, Author has written a memorable, thought-provoking, emotional, intense and captivating novel. There are basically two timelines in this story, one in the 1990s and the other is 2008 I appreciate the way the author weaves the two together. The Genres for this Novel are Contemporary Fiction, Fiction, Romance, Coming of Age and Women’s Fiction. The author describes her characters as complex and complicated. I like that the title of this story, “Summer Hours” symbolically could stand for different things.

When summer is mentioned, beaches, vacations, swimming, sailing, watersports, hiking, picnics, and so many wonderful things come to mind. Beach parties friends, romance, fireworks, food, and drink come to mind as well. Summer is relaxing vacation time for some people. For others, it is that life goes on as with responsibilities and work. For young high school and college graduates, it is both the end and beginning of possibly a new life and direction.

Becc, and Eric have been the best of friends in California in High School in the 1990s. Becc’s dream is to be a journalist and Eric dreams of doing something with movies. Becc gets a scholarship which she needs to help make her dreams come true, and goes to Berkley. Eric has his own problems and heads in his direction. As time moves on, many things have changed. Sometimes it is a difficult journey to find what you really want and expect.

I appreciate that the author discusses the importance of family, friends, self-growth, self-worth, forgiveness, love, and hope. I would highly recommend this thought-provoking novel. ( )

Thanks to the author for this ARC.

I couldn't finish this book; not for lacking in substance or for plot, but for it being chick lit which I sometimes don't enjoy as much depending on the age of the characters. The back and forth between past and present got to me after a while and I just wanted it to stay in the present for a while.

I skimmed to the end of the book to see if I was correct in guessing what would happen and I was correct and also to the fact what happened with her and her best friend's Eric's mother's boyfriend. ( )