In the Hamptons, the everyday people are as complicated and fascinating as the millionaires…When Katie Doyle moves across the country to the Hamptons, she is hoping for summer employment, new friends for her young son, and a chance to explore a new love affair with a dazzling investor. What she finds is a strange cocktail of classes, where society’s one-percenters vacation alongside local, … vacation alongside local, hard-working people who’ve lived in the Hamptons for generations. Though she’s looking forward to their move, Katie is wary about mingling with her boyfriends’ East Coast elite circles. She soon discovers Southampton isn’t all that it seems to be on the surface—and neither are the people who live there.
As George takes Katie on a whirlwind tour of country clubs, haute couture, and lavish events, she is amazed to witness sudden whims become dire needs, extra-marital affairs blossoming right and left, and people purchase friends and loyalties like a pair of shoes. Even the middle-class townspeople maintain a determined façade while maneuvering like sharks among the wealthy summer invaders.
The more Katie becomes immersed, the more she learns the secrets of both the upstairs and downstairs, the upper crust and middle of the road. The combustion between the classes becomes explosive as the summer tears on. Betrayals, a sexual predator, and a missing person lost in murky waves drive the reader on a racing Learjet ride through impossible twists and turns until landing at the shocking conclusion. When she meets Luke, a local surfer and middle school teacher, he makes her question what it is she really wants as she understands the life she’s begun for herself is built on shifting Hamptons’ dunes.
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I did not care for this book
Typical summer reading, kind of interesting the boyfriend is such a cad
Very good reading!
good for light summer reading
no substance and just a so-so beach read
Predictable plot and simplistic characterchures.
Katie moved to the Hamptons to try out a new life and a new relationship with George Potter. George lives in Manhattan during the week and comes out to see her when he’s off. But he barely visits. But that’s ok her and her son Huck could use a break. But while there She also catches the eye of Luke, an instructor at the beach during the summer for the Rich People’s children. She too finds herself drawn to him. Beside the love story, there are the secrets, dirt and scandal of the rich. I enjoyed this book.
Don’t waste your Time!!!. Tried to read THREE. Times!!! Gave up!!
Fun, campy summer read
Trite and predictable. I found it a waste of time.
The Hampton’s was a good book, an easy read. I read the book because it was about a town that I lived close too. I didn’t find it to be truthful.
Awful, couldn’t even finish.
Would be a perfect Beach read
Slow start, as the character were almost caricatures and wee unlikeable. The story got much better about 30% in.
Could not finish this book, it was so bad!
It was very fun and entertaining. A great beach read.
This book was odd but because of that it was fascinating! It was very hard for me to put down. The characters were querky and fun
An easy read but not that engaging.
Having been a Hampton “townie” like Luke in this story in the 60s and 70s and with returning to my hometown now……..the author nails the true nature of what is really going on in the Hamptons of today—the people of all socio-economic backgrounds. i did, however, not like the creepy boyfriend and his “secrets” when ihe was found out in the story. This was a spot on account of what it’s really like.
Way out at the end of Long Island lies the summer home of the rich and famous. Historically, the Hamptons have hosted summer residents with names like Ford, DuPont, Eisenhower, and more. With the average price of homes at around 8.5 million, Katie Doyle is surprised to find herself suddenly a resident of a small, seaside cottage in Southampton.
A native to the Pacific Northwest, Katie is orderly and specific in her actions, yet, It Happens in the Hamptons begins with her decision to move east after a month-long, sizzling affair with Hampton resident, George Porter. Having recently lost her mother to illness, Katie finds herself in need of a change for her and her 8-year old son, Huck. When George sweeps her off her feet and asks her to give their relationship a chance, she does just that, sending her down a path that is unlike any she’s ever been on.
I felt much like Katie as I immersed myself in It Happens in the Hamptons. She quickly encounters the residents of Southampton: the nouveau riche who don’t hesitate to drop tens of thousands of dollars on matching bikes for their houseguests, the old-moneyed residents who hide in their “WASP-ish” country club, or the middle class locals who keep the town running. Not quite knowing where she belongs and with George mysteriously absent most of the time, Katie finds herself mixing and matching her time with everyone in Southampton.
I liked how author Holly Peterson allowed readers to see both the good and bad of the Hamptons. As the book progresses, we’re invited along as Katie learns that everyone isn’t as they seem. Prejudice runs rampant and she finds that it’s the person that matters and not the label. Trust and friendship become the foundation for Katie as she finds the life she thought she was moving towards is veiled with suspicion, mystery, and romance where she least expects it.
The characters are odd, though likable. Luke Forrester is a water safety instructor/marine biology teacher that falls for Katie. He and his friends, Kenny and Kona, run a summer camp that is threatened by Bucky Porter, a representative for the Seabrook Country Club and one of the old-moneyed residents of Southampton. Though 31, Luke felt much younger, as did his friends. Their conversations had a teenage boy feel to them, especially when they worried as a group about who would pay for their shared PornHub subscription if Bucky successfully shut down their camp. George’s mother, Poppy, is by far my favorite character of the book. The matriarch of Seabrook, the reader expects her to be overbearing and superior, but instead she’s perhaps the best of the lot. We also meet the Chase family, one of the newly rich that occupy the grandiose estates along the coast. Julia matches her jewelry to her beach towel and flirts excessively, an apparent trophy wife. Her husband, Jake, is loud and obnoxious, trying hard to be cool, yet anything but. While ostensibly part of the clichéd summer dwellers that throw money around like confetti, Julia and Jake show their humanity all the while owning who they are.
While I enjoyed reading about the class dynamics, the book overall was a bit of an enigma. It’s labeled on Amazon as “social satire” and, admittedly, there are many moments of irony and numerous opportunities for laughing at others’ expense. Yet, at the same time, the book seems to take itself seriously. There’s romance with awkward sex scenes and hints at mystery that I figured out about a third of the way through, clues not as subtle as I would have hoped. There’s the narrative that switches POV like a race car driver switches lanes. Though Katie’s story is at the heart of It Happens in the Hamptons, we never really learn why she’s there. Once George gets her out to Long Island, he’s mostly inattentive. I was left wondering why he asked her to move across the country, especially as his life in Southampton is revealed. The book also jumps from plotline to plotline that eventually coalesce at the end, but ends up feeling like anticlimactic.
Perhaps the best part of the book is the Hamptons itself. Peterson does a wonderful job bringing the region to life, waxing poetic about the ocean, the salty air, and cool breezes. If nothing else, I felt as though I was standing on the tip of Long Island, sticking my toes in the cool water followed by waves rushing over my feet.