Book Review: An inheritance game, a steamy romance and family turmoil in 'These Summer Storms'

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It’s one thing to look at someone like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk and envy their wealth and success. It’s a totally different thing to be the child of a tech pioneer, with a reputation to uphold lest stock prices suffer — at least according to Sarah MacLean’s latest novel, “These Summer Storms.”

Alice Storm’s world is immediately captivating. Her childhood feels completely alien; an upper-class New York City upbringing taking helicopters to Rhode Island to spend summers at Storm Manor under an oppressive father and stifled mother — whom my brain immediately cast as Jessica Walter a la “Archer” or “Arrested Development” — gin and tonic always in hand, heavy on the gin. But Alice hasn’t seen her family in five years, since she was excommunicated from the Storm empire. And while she’s enjoying the independence and accomplishment that comes from building a life for herself by herself, the death of tech mogul Franklin Storm, the patriarch, is enough to drive her back to the family's secluded, stormy island one more time.

So if there’s a hookup with a strange, handsome man on the way there, who cares? Alice is grieving. She can have this one thing and move on, right?

Wrong! MacLean wouldn’t dare let the romance end there. “These Summer Storms” may be a genre shift for the author, but it doesn’t mean she’s leaving romance completely behind. A steamy undercurrent of lust runs through a passionate enemies-to-lovers plot alongside the shifting sands of a shaken family in great need of some therapy, who find themselves thrust into an inheritance game Franklin manufactured before his death.

If Franklin’s widow and four kids want to see a penny of his enormous wealth, they’ll have to follow his rules, which range from saying nice things about him and not speaking during odd hours to revealing grave truths and upending years-long relationships.

The drama is intoxicating, and it feels great to get swept up in an imaginary rich family’s problems. “These Summer Storms” is pitted with little mysteries and interpersonal land mines. While the novel loses some momentum in the final act, it’s a fun beach read, perfectly positioned for summer; on one level, it’s a light read with rich-behaving-badly appeal. But it also goes deeper, into grief and emotional healing. MacLean writes with a strong narrative voice filled with humor and beautiful word-paintings.

And, of course, plenty of storm metaphors.

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