For fans of Jodi Picoult and Anna Quindlen, comes an “astonishingly profound…exquisitely written drama” (Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You) about a husband and a wife, a missing child, and the complicated family secrets that can derail even the best of marriages. It’s been a busy–and expensive–few years for Matt and Elise Sorenson and their young daughter … Sorenson and their young daughter Gracie, whom they affectionately call Little Green. Matt, a Manhattan lawyer, has just been offered a partnership, and Elise’s equestrian ambitions as a competitive dressage rider may finally vault her into the Olympics. But her long absences from home and endless hours of training have strained their relationships nearly to the breaking point.
Now they’re up in the Adirondacks, preparing to sell the valuable lakefront cabin that’s been in Matt’s family for generations. Both he and Elise agree it’s time to let it go. But as they navigate the memories the cabin holds–and come face to face with Matt’s teenage crush, now an unnervingly attractive single mother living right next door–Gracie disappears without a trace.
Faced with the possibility that they’ll never see their daughter again, Elise and Matt struggle to come to terms with what their future may bring. The fate of the family property, the history of this not-so-tiny town, and the limits of Matt and Elise’s love for each other are inextricably bound up with Gracie’s disappearance. Everything for the Sorenson family is about to change–the messy tangle of their past, the harrowing truth of their present, and whether or not their love will survive a parent’s worst nightmare.
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How much stress can a marriage take? Tish Cohen answers this question with skill and artistry, capturing subtle shifts in mood and feeling as she escalates the pressure on her characters. They’re forced to face their own foibles and weaknesses as well as each other’s as they confront the mystery at the heart of this story. Atmospheric and compulsively readable.
Tish Cohen’s writing is both fresh and familiar in the sense that you might never have heard something described in that way, but then you think, “Yes, that’s exactly how it is.” Her dialogue is pitch perfect. Her 8-year-old girl is just as quirky and silly and yet also incisive as 8-year-old’s can be. I very much enjoyed this!
I want to start off by saying that I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. In return for my honest thoughts and review. Even through it took me awhile to read this book. I took my time I wanted to understand the characters and their sides in this story. I am not going to lie there were times I was yelling at both of them. I couldn’t put this book down. I highly enjoyed it and recommend this book.
About book:
Matt is a lawyer and who is much older then his wife Elise. Elise is a rider and travels a lot. Not very much home to help Matt take care of their daughter. Matt has taken the role in taken care their daughter alone. Matt grandfather has passed away. Matt and Elise both agree to sale his property where Matt grew up in. When their daughter azincomes up missing. It puts a strange space between these two. And they both start to question things about their marriage and the future and what it holds. Amazing story and very well written. I will be reading more from Tish Cohen and anything else she comes out with.
Elise Sorenson is driven. She’s been working years to make it to the big time Olympics in her dressage event. Her sport keeps her away from home, her husband and daughter, and when she misses her daughter’s play prior to a vacation trip to reconnect and sell her husband’s family cabin in Lake Placid, all the cracks in their relationship start to widen.
Matt Sorenson is tired. He’s been taking care of their daughter Gracie while Elise is training and competing. He’s footed the bill for her sport, which is considerable and now has a chance to have his own career success if he can come up with the 150K required for being a partner. He needs the money from the cabin sale to secure his partnership. One problem though — Elise comes closer to her dream than she’s ever been, needing the extra cash from the sale to fund her next competition and so Matt sees his dreams go up in smoke again. He frustrated and wants his wife back…that is until he meets his Lake Placid neighbor Cass, the girl he lost his virginity to way back when. She’s sown her wild oats and is now back home, ready and waiting to help Matt with whatever he needs. (wink wink, nudge nudge)
The first half of this book is a bit slow and gets into the heads of Matt and Elise. It’s a portrait of a marriage in trouble but Elise doesn’t see it until Cass shows her that she has no problem breaking up their marriage. When Gracie goes missing, all the cracks in Matt and Elise’s relationship turn to breaks and a very bad time is made worse.
I really liked how this book portrayed the gradual breaking of the relationship. It didn’t just happen in one big moment — their estrangement grows bit by bit until Matt decides he can’t take anymore. If only they could talk to each other, but as anyone in a relationship knows, that sometimes becomes impossible.
Elise is focused on getting her daughter back, while Matt totally loses the focus he’s had on being a supportive father and husband. There are things from both their past that they must resolve first. Matt finds out some seriously nasty stuff about his revered grandfather and in the process starts to find his heart again. It’s Elise’s willingness to move beyond her past that opens a door to finding her daughter.
Overall, I enjoyed this story in spite of a slow pace and lots of internal monologue.There was a good bit of tension, especially after Gracie disappears. I liked Elise and Matt together — I think they had a good relationship that was strained for obvious reasons. I would have liked to have had more about their recovery from their sins of omission and Matt’s dalliance with Cass, but I did appreciate that they found their way back to what was important to them.
This was a new author for me and I’d read more of her work. I liked The Summer We Lost Her. It was a quick read and it hit all the right notes for me. Recommended if you are looking for a bit of thriller and a study of a marriage in trouble.
An ARC was provided for review.
Really well written family drama surrounding a family’s stay at their summer place while preparing it for sale. There are many turns in this story including the kidnapping of their only child, the husband’s first love living next door and a cast of characters who seem to alternately revere and loath the family. Both Matt and ;Elise are nearing the top of their careers but what will they sacrifice to get it?
This is the ultimate domestic drama that deals with marital issues. Any book that involves the disappearance of a child tears at my heart. I can’t imagine a feeling worse. There are the typical thrill moments amidst the mystery. Experiencing the difficulty of handling work and family makes you feel like you are right there living the story. Even though the characters may make some mistakes, they aren’t bad people. They just make bad decisions. But can forgiveness be discovered by the end?
Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
Tish Cohen has written a beautiful story about what makes a couple and family tick (or not). I loved the expertly woven in backstory that showed the characters’ history and how it shaped them. When Gracie’s story took a very unexpected turn it surprised and delighted me. A highly recommended read.
Author Tish Cohen touches on every emotion in this astonishing novel! Elise Sorenson has dreamed about competing as a dressage rider in the Olympics from the time she first began her equestrian training. When it seems like her chance has finally arrived, her world begins falling apart. Living with the guilt of her young daughters disabilities due to a fall from her horse when she was in her third trimester, Tish is on her way home to spend two weeks with her husband Matt and daughter Gracie at Matt’s Grandfather’s lakefront cabin in the Adirondacks. It is more than just a family vacation though because they are getting the cabin ready to put on the market to sale. With the expense of Elise’s training, traveling and the expense of boarding her horse, Matt is trying to keep the family from going bankrupt. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Elise is late getting home so she misses Gracie’s school play. Feeling alone and second rate, Matt and Gracie go ahead to the cabin. When Matt is settled in, he sees someone next door around a bonfire and is surprised to Cass, his childhood friend and crush. Reminiscing about the past has Matt longing for the love and companionship he feels he doesn’t have with Elise. After Elise arrives, Matt tries to put all of his heart into trying to fix their marriage. After Elise discovers Cass living next door, she begins noticing the change overcoming Matt. Will Matt give his marriage the attention it needs or will he decide it isn’t worth saving? After their daughter is discovered missing, Matt and Elise begin falling apart. They are not trying to be strong for one another but pulling in two different directions and Cass is always around to pick up the pieces. Can this marriage be saved or will Cass get her forever with Matt? This is an extraordinary novel that had me mad, happy and sad and showed me that the bonds of marriage will stand strong through any kind of adversity as long as the couple continues to believe in one another. Author Tish Cohen has mesmerized me with the beauty and magic within this book! I can’t wait to read more of her amazing work!
Tish Cohen is the author of five previous novels, including The Truth About Delilah Blue. Her latest release, The Summer We Lost Her, is an exquisitely constructed, emotionally rich look at a family in crisis and the ways in which spouses Elise and Matt navigate the unimaginable.
Elise is a devoted wife to Matt and mother to Gracie, but she is also chasing an Olympic dream. With her beloved horse, Indie, known for his winning combination of enthusiasm and charm, she hopes to qualify to compete in the dressage event. Wearing white gloves and tails, dressage riders navigate their steeds through precise routines, some of which are set to music. The sport is not just technically exacting. It’s expensive, requiring a vast financial investment in the ownership, care, and transportation of the horse, training, and endless hours of practice. Elise’s life is a constant balancing act — training, competitions, travel, and spending time with her family all compete for her time and attention. It wasn’t always that way. After a devastating accident while she was pregnant with Gracie, Elise did not get back on a horse for three years and it was only through an intervention in which Matt participated that she resumed training. But Elise carries a substantial amount of guilt — about a few things, not the least of which are promises made to Gracie she has had to break and milestones she has missed.
Matt has been understanding and supportive (emotionally and financially), but the strain of being a single parent much of the time is taking a toll on him, as well as the marriage and Gracie, and has gotten to be too much for Matt. Elise’s ambitions have impacted his own career as an attorney. Now he’s been offered a partnership with his law firm after toiling as an associate for eleven years — because he has been thus far to devote the hours to his practice required in order to advance. Matt has made a decision and plans to announce it to Elise . . . as soon as she returns home for a much-needed break with the family.
As Elise finally arrives home and the family embarks on a summer break at the lakefront cabin Matt inherited from his grandfather in beautiful Lake Placid. Just like Matt, Elise is at a crossroads and needs to talk with Matt about the family’s future and whether it can accommodate both of their dreams. From the outset, Cohen establishes that there are no villains in her story. Matt and Elise love each other, their child, and the family they have formed deeply. But both are painfully aware that the stresses of their competing needs have pushed them to the brink of breaking. And something or someone will have to give in order to find resolution.
Cohen quickly endears the Sorenson family to readers. Through a highly effective third-person narrative, she takes readers into Matt and Elise’s internal struggles and evaluations of their priorities, limitations, and willingness to compromise or even sacrifice in order to keep their family intact, Through flashbacks, Cohen reveals their history as a couple, as well as with Matt’s late grandfather, a man who showed a different side of himself to Elise than to Matt. Matt always believed the man was a pillar of the close-knit community of Lake Placid — a generous benefactor to those in need, if a shrewd businessman and investor who amassed a large and highly marketable parcel of land upon which the old cabin that needs significant improvements sits. But there may have been much more to him and his business transactions that Matt ever imagined.
And then the unthinkable happens. On what should be a happy morning, Gracie vanishes without a trace. As the frantic search for her unfolds, Matt and Elise respond to the crisis quite differently. Cohen appropriately accelerates the narrative’s pace, and credibly portrays the myriad emotions the parents experience, wavering from utter despair to unsparing determination to never give up looking for their girl. For good measure, Cohen includes a romantic complication in the form of Matt’s high school girlfriend, now permanently residing next door, as well as a mystery surrounding the true motivation and machinations of Matt’s grandfather.
The Summer We Lost Her is a believable exploration of the real stresses associated with wanting to “have it all” — career, marriage, family — and the not-so-subtle ways in which the resultant challenges impact men and women differently. Cohen makes readers first-hand observers of Matt and Elise’s inner turmoil and reveals the excruciatingly painful journey of losing a child in what may be the cruelest way imaginable. How does a parent come to terms with the disappearance of a child and, perhaps, never learning what happened to him/her?
The Summer We Lost Her is, at times, heartbreaking, but always compulsively readable and thoroughly engrossing. Cohen challenges readers to ponder their own capacity for resiliency and to withstand stressors they encounter in their own lives, as well as how they would react under similar circumstances. Cohen’s compassion for her characters is evident from start to finish as she takes each of them to the outer limit of their capacity to cope . . . and then a bit further. She also imbues the story with hope and provides a believable and emotionally satisfying conclusion to her tautly-crafted tale.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book.
The Summer We Lost Her is a compelling and complex portrait of a marriage and regret. Cohen spins a moving story with a high-stakes plot that won’t let you go until you know the family’s fate.
A complex and beautifully told story of a marriage in crisis, and the myriad ways our personal histories and our regrets come back to haunt us. Tish Cohen’s characters are complicated and flawed and wonderfully precise, and somehow, by the time you turn the final pages of The Summer We Lost Her, they come to feel like family.
In this gripping and searing portrait of a marriage on the brink, Tish Cohen kept me on the edge of my seat through every twist and turn of her cleverly crafted plot.
Cohen writes with command of a strained marriage facing unfathomable challenge, knowing precisely when to reveal and when to withhold. Deftly plotted and tensely paced, The Summer We Lost Her is impossible to put down.
The Summer We Lost Her is a story about sacrifice, secrets, resentment, regrets, priorities, dreams, reconciliation and love.
Elise and Matt Sorenson are a couple trying to reconnect for a few weeks in Matt’s grandfather’s cabin in Lake Placid, NY. Matt, a Manhatten lawyer, has always been supportive of Elise’s dream of being in the Olympics as an equestrian dressage rider, but her continual absences from home training for or riding in events to further her goal have stressed their marriage to the breaking point.
Due to Elise’s absence, Matt is a mostly single parent to their young daughter Gracie. Right before he leaves for vacation, Matt is offered a partnership in his law firm, but his boss has made it clear that it will mean longer hours. Having always wanted another child and with this offer before him, Matt thinks it may be time to change the dynamics of their marriage and plans to discuss it with Elise during their time at the lake.
Meanwhile, Elise chooses to stay with her troubled horse rather than catch the flight home in time to see her daughter’s school play. Before she arrives at the cabin, she gets a phone call telling her that her bold choice in the most recent competition places her firmly on the road to the Olympics, but she will need to cut the time with her family short to continue training. She is excited to share her good news with Matt.
When Elise arrives at the cabin at 2 AM, she finds two wineglasses in the sink, one with lipstick on it. During their first morning together, Elise learns that Matt’s old high-school girlfriend and her son are in the cabin right next to theirs. This couple has a lot to discuss!!
Before they can begin to talk things out, their daughter, Gracie goes missing.
This novel is a bit of a slow burner. I had issues with egocentric Elise (as I’m sure the author intended), and found it hard to understand Matt’s waiting so long to speak up for Gracie and himself.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Gallery/Scout Press for allowing me to read an ARC of this novel in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed here are my own.