“A novel of family and place and belonging.” –Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer Prize finalist “Tender and suspenseful.” –Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author Some places never leave you… After a disastrous summer spent at her family’s home on Cape Cod when she is seventeen, Ann Gordon is very happy to never visit Wellfleet again. If only she’d stayed in Wisconsin, she might never have … again. If only she’d stayed in Wisconsin, she might never have met Anthony Shaw, and she would have held onto the future she’d so carefully planned for herself. Instead, Ann ends up harboring a devastating secret that strains her relationship with her parents, sends her sister Poppy to every corner of the world chasing waves (and her next fling), and leaves her adopted brother Michael estranged from the family.
Now, fifteen years later, her parents have died, and Ann and Poppy are left to decide the fate of the beach house that’s been in the Gordon family for generations. For Ann, the once-beloved house is forever tainted with bad memories. And while Poppy loves the old saltbox on Drummer Cove, owning a house means settling, and she’s not sure she’s ready to stay in one place.
Just when the sisters decide to sell, Michael re-enters their lives with a legitimate claim to a third of the estate. He wants the house. But more than that, he wants to set the record straight about what happened that long-ago summer that changed all of their lives forever. As the siblings reunite after years apart, their old secrets and lies, longings and losses, are pulled to the surface. Is the house the one thing that can still bring them together–or will it tear them apart, once and for all?
Told through the shifting perspectives of Ann, Poppy, and Michael, this assured and affecting debut captures the ache of nostalgia for summers past and the powerful draw of the places we return to again and again. It is about second homes, second families, and second chances. Tender and compassionate, incisive and heartbreaking, The Second Home is the story of a family you’ll quickly fall in love with, and won’t soon forget.
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3.5 stars
The Second Home was an emotional family drama. It’s broken into two main parts – the past and then 15 years later. The story focuses on the Gordon family and how one disastrous summer sends all three siblings on different paths. The book played out in my mind like a movie and after a bit of a slow start, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to find out how it would all end.
I liked Michael, Ann, and Poppy for the most part, but there were also times that I found them very frustrating. I felt the decisions and mistakes made in their youth were understandable and heartbreaking. I actually had to put the book down a few times in part one because of how heavy my heart felt. As adults, however, their inability to speak openly and honestly with each other grew tiresome. The miscommunications and misunderstandings made the story feel too drawn out and then once the air is finally cleared (no thanks to our main characters), the book ends. I would have liked to see a little more about the healing of their friendships and relationships and how things finally came back together. Overall, this was an entertaining read and a solid debut, but I had a hard time fully rooting for these characters.
CW: infidelity, rape, suicide
*I voluntarily read a review copy of this book*
*** Review may contain spoilers…proceed at your own risk ***
Family. Friendship, secrets, lies and always, love. When something happens to one, it happens to all. What would you do to protect your loved ones? I enjoyed this story, I found it moved at a good pace and the story line was new and easily followed. The characters were likable, and situations they found themselves in were age appropriate. Loved the dynamics within the family. Enjoyable read with a little more depth than a normal summer read.
Story takes place from 1999 thru 2017. The story flips seamlessly from teenage siblings Ann, Poppy and newly adopted Michael. From Wisconsin to Cape Cod. Parents Ed and Connie are well loved teachers with a hippie-like vibe, and huge hearts. At their daughters suggestion, they adopt fellow student Michael. They spend their vacations at a family house on Cape Cod. What transpires from their second summer together changes to the course of this family. The sisters are very close and Michael adds a new dimension and feelings like no other.
The author does an excellent job relaying teenage feelings, angst and longings in this book about growing up in a tight knit, loving family when something unspeakable happens. It may happen to one, but all are effected equally. The adoption of an older child and their ‘baggage’ is handled with sensitivity and honesty, showing the struggle to find their forever place within the family. I have first-hand knowledge of adoption issues and memory issues and found this part of the story true to fact.
Thanks to Ms. Clancy, St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone.
All I can say is WOW! Christina Clancy’s debut novel is a winner! It tells the story of a family that lives, loves and then shatters. The characters are so real that they step right off the pages into the reader’s heart. Ann, Poppy and Michael struggle with trying to find their way back home to the family they once had.
The Second Home is an emotional read. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.
I received a copy of The Second Home from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. I can honestly say that I loved this book and I look forward to reading Ms. Clancy’s next book.
Christina Clancy’s debut novel explores the concept of home through a kaleidoscope of three perspectives. Ann, the eldest and most responsible of the Gordon siblings, is nicknamed, “Ann with a Plan.” Conflict swirls around an insidious and conniving antagonist, Anthony Shaw, a rich Cape Cod summer resident who employs Ann one fateful summer. Teachers in Milwaukee, the Gordons adopt Michael as a teen, after both his parents die. The family’s summer house in Cape Cod expands Michael’s tragic world to one of independence and possibility. Poppy, the youngest Gordon, is a free spirit. In Cape Cod she discovers surfing, drugs, and a taste for travel. When the Gordon parents suddenly die, these three confront the fate of the Milwaukee and Cape Cod houses, and with them, the fate of their family.
Ann, Michael and Poppy each take turns as charming and gritty stars of each chapter. As no one character is dominant, a fourth voice emerges: the connections and disconnections between characters. Estrangement and belonging become restless bedfellows the characters are able to navigate due to this resilient fourth voice. Ann’s fraught relationship with Anthony, Michael’s protective nature and Poppy’s escapism balance out in an always evolving creation: Home.
The democratic writing style betrays the Midwestern flavor of the novel. In the tradition of the Midwest’s stoic Northern European inhabitants, feelings are aired yet not romanticized. Dialogue is straight forward, not analytical. Descriptions of natural beauty are functional, not ancillary, contributing to the plot’s movement toward stability and resolution. Through sturdy prose and thoughtful characters, home comes across like a hearty meal with just enough realism to fill the belly as well as mystery to leave a tantalizing hunger for more.
The Second Home is a stalwart, trustworthy book, a feel-good read, perfect for summer satisfaction in the midst of global chaos.
The second home was an amazing story of family. Two families. Relationships, injustice, betrayal and perceived betrayals. Self-discovery, forgiveness, and coming back to the heart of it all… Family. Sometimes an anchor can be the thing that weighs you down , pulls you under; and sometimes the anchor can be the thing that steadies you and makes you strong. I loved this story and found it difficult to put it down, to do those adulting things that one must do! This is a story that will stay with me for some time
The Gordon family, every summer heads from their hometown in Wisconsin out to their cottage for two weeks, in Cape Cod. A cottage that has been built by their ancestors and kept in the family for decades. It is the two weeks that everyone forgets about life for a little while, enjoys the sun, sand, and summer. It’s a vacation looked forward to every single summer, by all.
Ann, the older of the two girls befriends a loner in her grade and doesn’t have the best family situation at home. He soon starts staying at their house for more than just dinner and after his mother passes, the Gordon’s decide to adopt him. He feels as if he is part of the family after all, and he has never given any reason for them not to take him in as one of their own.
Poppy and Ann cannot wait to show Michael the cottage at Wellfleet. It will feel like learning everything all over again out there, with showing Michael what family and vacation is all about. Things change once they get there, Ann see’s a post for a babysitting position and jumps at the chance to take it to make as much money as she can before college.
Poppy feeling a bit neglected finds a group of kids she starts hanging out with, not the best of sorts but it keeps her days busy and she is learning how to surf. Something she has always wanted. Ann gets Michael a job with a landscape guy who does the yard work for the family that Ann has been babysitting for. More so, carting the kids around then babysitting. Although Michael had not expected to take a job on while on vacation, he accepts but is not a fan of the husband.
One night, Ann comes back to the cottage and Michael knows something is wrong. She won’t talk, but wants to just lay down by him. Her father walks in, and assumes something else is going on. They pack up and leave, their vacation cut short and silence all the way back to Milwaukee.
How the hell could one misconception go so wrong. Nothing happened! Ann and Michael both say the same thing, but how do you trust that? They are just teens and hormones are raging. Her parents were teenagers once themselves. Months later, a dark secret is revealed and Michael and Ann find themselves backed against the wall with no other option but to agree to this solution.
Over a decade later, and Ann now has to handle the estate of her parents and figuring out what to do with the house, and cottage. She cannot find a will anywhere, and she knows her father had one but she also might have neglected to be truthful when filing the paperwork as well. Michael hasn’t been heard from in years, there is no way he will find out, and try and stake a claim.
The three of them are finally forced together, back where everything started and the truth of a decade slowly starts to unfold as comments and snide remarks are made. Can the three of them become siblings again, or will the past always keep a wall between them all?
Very good read! I feel like I have said that a lot lately, but it’s true! I have read a lot of well written books the last year or so. I also am a tad biased being a Wisconsinite myself! 🙂 I want to thank the author for sharing her story, as well as St. Martin’s Press and Shelf Pro Awareness for sending me an arc. I look forward to seeing what her next novel will be.
This book was a very emotional rollercoaster. It was about a family from Wisconsin and their second home on Cape Cod. At first it was the father, mother, and two girls and then one year they adopted a homeless boy that the oldest girl had befriended. The next year, everything came undone and the family was torn apart. The oldest daughter became pregnant, the younger daughter got into drugs and surfing and the adopted son got thrown out. The younger daughter traveled all over the world trying to find peace, the older daughter had her son and went to college, the boy stayed close to the second home and the parents wound up getting killed. Their deaths wind up bringing things to a head again when it comes to the settling of their estate. Each chapter is told from one of the three “siblings” point of view. There are many emotional ups and downs in this story and it was not a “light” read, but it was a good story.
Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press I was allowed to read an Advanced copy of this book and I am voluntarily leaving this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own and are freely given.
Christina Clancy writes with warmth, wit, and wisdom about fantastically human characters. A novel of family and place and belonging for fans of Ann Packer and J. Courtney Sullivan.
I gobbled The Second Home in a matter of days, fully invested in the history, hurt, and hopes of this very human family. Christina Clancy writes with empathy and rich detail: to read about the Gordons is to smell the pine and oak of Wellfleet, to tread the well-worn rooms of their eccentric summer home, and to learn all sides of the explosive rift that sent them hurtling in different directions. Tender and suspenseful, Clancy’s debut explores the nature of home as well as the nature of family itself ― given and chosen.
A sure-footed ode to the strength of family, the depth of loss, and the power of forgiveness.
Every Wellfleet sand dune, every breeze and beach and pond, came alive for me in this beautiful, heartbreaking debut about a Milwaukee family’s complicated history with their summer home. Christina Clancy’s characters are so real and flawed, so caught between the darkness and the light, that they step right off the page, and you won’t rest until you know what becomes of them.
Christina Clancy writes with an arresting vividness and a nuanced understanding of her characters, who are buffeted by a storm of conflicting desires. A poignant but also very entertaining novel ― full of startling detail, humor, and above all, an abiding sympathy for its beautifully drawn characters.
Clancy imagines her complicated characters with such empathy and precision that every questionable choice, every mistake, feels like the only option. The Second Home is a big, sprawling, smart, beautiful story about love and betrayal, home and family, and the foundations of forgiveness.
The Second Home shows us how families are knit together and how they unravel; how a place ― a geography, a house ― can act as the repository for our best and most important memories. And that even the most damaged past can be reclaimed, a hard-won wisdom that shines through on every page.
I received a free electronic ARC of this debut novel from Netgalley, Christina Clancy, and St. Martin’s Press. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. Ms. Clancy has brought us a tight tale with well-rounded, personable protagonists facing realistic troubles handled in age-appropriate ways, the family who despite their differences cannot help but recognize the love that binds them together.
I enjoyed the way the old family home in Wellfleet, Cape Cod, Massachusetts ties together all of the elements of this tale. The Wisconsin Gordon family, current generation Madison educators, and their children spend every summer in Wellfleet in this the third and fourth generations of the Gordon family.
Ed and Connie with teen daughters Ann and Poppy and their recently adopted orphaned schoolmate Michael hit the road as soon as summer vacations begin, and spend the summer on the cape, lovingly patching up the beloved 200-year-old home they all hold dear and living in the sand and water as much as possible. The area of Wellfleet and Cape Cod are clearly detailed and enjoyably pictured. Our story covers 1999 through 2015, as we watch the children grow up and clearly see the influences of the old family home on their life’s decisions. We watch as the Gordon family ushers in the fifth generation and introduces them to sunny Wellfleet summers. The Second Home was an interesting and engrossing read. I am pleased to add new author Christina Clancy to my list of authors to watch for and to recommend her work to friends and family.
3.5 stars
The Second Home is Christina Clancy’s debut novel. It is a family drama that takes place in Milwaukee and Cape Cod.. The Gordon parents are teachers with two daughters, Ann and Poppy. They adopt a son, Michael who has lost both of his parents. The Gordon’s spend summers on Cape Cod. I got caught up in Ann’s story but felt that the book dragged on for about 50 pages too long and then the ending was just there. I would have liked Clancy to spend more time on the ending. Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Okay, I like a good family drama with lots of secrets as well as the next person, but there’s just one problem – I can only stretch my ability to overlook the implausible and unbelievable so far. The Second Home surpassed that in the first half, which left a whole other half a book to get through without rolling my eyes completely out of my head. Seriously, it reached a point that I started thinking about the many times my mother told me they would get stuck that way. It’s a good thing that’s not true! I realize that I’m in the minority here, and this book has received a great many glowing reviews, so I’m not going to go into the many problems I had with this book in detail because they would certainly be considered spoilers. It is safe to say that the problems were many. The story does get dark, but it just pushes too far for me to get invested in either the characters or their goings-on.
What a great story! This is about a family with very diverse personalities. Course if you’ve had teenagers, you know their personalities can change daily. How much fun would it be to have a beach house? In this story we see how family members can drift apart, think the worse of each other and still try to do what is best for the other person. I loved seeing how Ann, Poppy, and Michael grow and deal with what life gives them. Course I believed it helped to have Connie and Ed as role models, but even they had a few surprises up their sleeves. I would love to make another trip to Wellfleet to see how everyone is doing. I received the book from NetGalley, but my opinion is my own.
I enjoyed The Second Home by Christina Clancy. It was a good story to pass the time during quarantine. It was entertaining and kept me interested. I love stories that take place at the beach and this one takes place in Cape Cod.
Clancy has a gentle approach to her writing style in this book. She is not in your face. She just lays out a nice story for your enjoyment. If you like stories about families with history and young love, you will like this one and I would definitely recommend it for your reading pleasure. This book warmed my heart.
I grew to like her charecters and had several chuckles over Ed and Connie who were the parents of Ann and Poppy. They still had a great love for each other and I admired them. Have you ever had a teacher that was on the hippie side? Now, imagine them as your parents and going to the same high school where they teach.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher for a fair and honest review.
This was an emotional book for me. The author did an amazing job in describing how easy it was for an older man to seduce a 17 year old girl. The naivety of the girl. Feeling pleased with herself with getting the attention and a bit of flirtation until it all goes wrong. How she keeps the secret from her parents until it can no longer be ignored. The emotions of the younger sister and adopted brother all come to live in this book that it almost makes you feel frustrated that you can’t help them out the predicament they are in because it feels that real. The other reason I liked the book is the description of the travel and locations. After having lived near the Cape a for about 30 years and retired to the Midwest afterwards brought back nice memories.