With thousands of five-star reviews on Goodreads, this includes both books in the award-winning, best-selling set. Come hang out in the Outer Banks with Em, Cade, Gwenny, and Levi. You’ll be surrounded by music, cooking, the beach, happiness, love, secrets, and…heartbreak.
BOOK ONE: What happens when you discover your whole life has been a lie?
Em is the “good girl” who always does what is … lie?
Em is the “good girl” who always does what is expected. All she wants is to step free and explore the world.
The last thing she expects is a laid back local surfer boy to stroll into her life.
Cade lives his life one day at a time. He doesn’t believe in making plans. And he definitely doesn’t believe in love.
Until he meets Em.
But what do you do when long-buried secrets come to light and those closest to you turn out to be liars?
BOOK TWO: What happens when the one person you fall in love with is the one you can’t have?
Gwenny is the party girl who has officially made one too many mistakes. All she wants is a second chance.
The last thing she expects is a sexy and sweet musician to stroll into her life.
Levi is an international music star who hasn’t composed a single note in a year. He doesn’t believe in muses.
Until he meets Gwenny.
But what do you do when fate intervenes, secrets come barreling back, and your past won’t stay away?
One summer changes everything…
more
The Summer My Life Began revolves around two sisters, Em and Gwenny. Their stories are of finding yourself, finding the strength to live the life you want, forgiveness and love. Family secrets can either tear a family apart or make them stronger. These are two great stories! Anna Island is very easy to get lost in.
Shannon Greenland, ‘The Summer my Live Began’.
The complete series.
As a Hidden Gems ARC reader I received a free copy of both books and promised an honest review of these books. Here it is.
Rating: 4 (of 5 stars).
In general: Sweet romance and many family secrets.
Book one: ‘Em’
Main character:
– Elizabeth Margaret ‘Em’ Byner (18).
She’s a talented, intelligent and ambitious high school student. So her Boston society parents and grandma expect from her that she will study at a top university for medicine or law. But secretly she loves cooking.
When she graduates from high school she gets an invitation from her unknown aunt Matilda ‘Tilly’ for a summer vacation visit. Her aunt owns a B&B (The Pepper House)
near the beach of Anna Island (North Carolina). Em wants to escape the control of her very ambitious, formal parents and after some negotiation she gets permission to stay with her aunt for a month.
Then the author, Shannon Greenland, explains how this month with her aunt changes her live. A plot with some very unexpected turns, a credible explanation of the feelings between Em and her unknown family, the start of a sweet romance and the description of the developments in her cooking skills result in a very interesting story, for me a pleasure to read.
Book two: ‘Gwenny’.
Main character:
– Gwyneth ‘Gwenny’ Byner (18).
Em’s sister (2 years younger).
Gwenny is the ‘black sheep’ in the family. Especially after her older, brilliant sister left home to pursue her dreams. Parties, drugs and school problems bring her parents to interfere and limit the damage. The relationship between Gwenny and her parents complicates more and more. The society sensitive parents keep a distance, seem uninterested in her feelings and concentrate on their own important jobs; Gwen wants their love and interest.
When Gwen visits her sister Em on Anna Island during a summer vacation she meets Levi, a rock star, who visits his best friend Cade, Gwenny’s new brother-in-law.
Both, Gwen and Levi, have problems with accidents in their past. They feel a physical and emotional connection, but the sad accidents cause problems in their relationship.
The author, Shannon Greenland, describes with a lot of feeling how they – with many complications – learn to live with their past and thus find the trust that they can have a happy future together. Perhaps the end is a bit too sweet to be credible, but – all in all – for me the book was a pleasure to read.
R. Huiszoon.
Title: Em (The Summer My Life Began Book 1)
Rating:
Content:
I loved this YA romance. It’s just like a Sarah Dessen or Kasie West novel. I’ve read some of Shannon’s books before such as the Piper Investigation series, (link of my review below.) I have loved every book that I have read and this was no exception to that rule.
The story follows Em who has lived the perfect life. Maybe a little too perfect. When she gets graduation congratulations from a long lost aunt asking if she would like to stay here for the summer, she agrees. She’s been feeling overwhelmed for quite some time now. When she meets her aunt, she feels nothing but happiness. She starts following her dream of being a chef, finds a great guy who’s name is Cade and learns a huge secret that changing the entire course of her life.
I loved the emotion in this book. By the end, I was crying tears of joy. Cade was such a different hero. He wasn’t in the first half as much as most books do. I loved the love between Em’s sibling and cousin. Gwenny was so encouraging and Frederick was someone who could relate to her because of their similarities. It was super intriguing and you couldn’t really predict anything. It is a completely clean novel. I enjoyed this book a lot and would recommend to anybody who is looking for a teen romance novel.
I wrote this voluntary review in exchange for an ARC copy.
Title: Gwenny (The Summer My Life Began Book 2)
Rating:
Content:
I absolutely adored this book. It was heavier than the first but just as good. This book has a dual perspective rather than just one person.
The story follows Levi and Gwenny. Levi is a musician for a famous band called Bus Stop. Gwenny is a party girl harboring guilt towards an event that has put her best friend on bed rest. They meet each other at Cade and Em’s wedding. Cade is Levi’s best friend and Em is Gwenny’s cousin/sister. They both are attracted to each other but also have secrets of their own. Levi also is harboring guilt towards an incident. But things change when they start falling in love.
Amazingly written story! This novel was more refined than the first as it had a more serious plot that wraps around. It is a stand-alone but reading the first would make a bit more sense. I loved the suspense in this book. I didn’t know why they harboring guilt or what happened in each little incident. I loved the emotion and the feeling of this book. It was absolutely mind-blowing. The story was intriguing and happening. I would recommend this to anyone around.
I wrote this voluntary review in exchange for an ARC copy.
Piper Investigation Review: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R21802D0RINGLE?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp
This is the complete collection set of books in this series, book one is focussed on Em and book two is focussed on Gwenny. The two girls are sisters and come from an affluent Boston family, where their futures have already been laid out clearly for them, Ivy League college, studying for Em then working in their father’s law firm, getting married to one of the sons of another similar family. Em is just about to graduate high school and is set to spend her summer doing an intern job for a law firm that her father has set up. Until an aunt she never even knew about, invites her to Anna Island for the summer. The girls have an Aunt Matilda (Tilly), their mother’s sister, who has never been mentioned to that day. A shocking discovery that allows Em to get away from the stresses of her normal life fr one month of the summer at least and to get to know her aunt. She also finds out they have a cousin called Frederick, who is about the same age as Gwyneth (Gwenny).
Her aunt Tilly is the complete opposite of her straight laced mother and has a bohemian style all of her own. Em meets two young men, Jeremy who is like many of her friends back in Boston and a perfect date, and then Cade who helps out at her aunt’s B&B, The Pepper House, and is a laid back surfer type. One should be perfect for a summer fling, if she was following her parent’s ideals, but it is Cade she gets the butterflies from and can’t keep out of her mind. She is free from her parent’s restraints on her life, for just one month and she is going to make the most of it! While looking for something to borrow from her aunt, Em gets curious when she spots a box of photos, but what she finds will soon reveal a long buried family secret. One that all those involved have kept secret for years and could be the real reason as to why Em and Gwenny never knew of their aunt or cousin!
The second book concentrates on Gwenny, some two years after the summer mentioned in the first book and she is now finishing high school, but only just scraping through. She went off the rails over the last two years, since Em left and spent her time as a party girl, until something happened and she made one mistake too many and her parents can’t even speak to her anymore. She hasn’t exactly got into any of the colleges her parents expected, nor for the type of course either. She is heading out to Anna Island and has a summer placement at St Bart’s, to work with children with disabilities, something she loves to do. She is riddled with guilt about her previous actions and the consequences it had on someone close to her and soon meets a young man who is also struggling with a secret, similar to hers.
He is called Levi and he is the keyboard player for a well-known band called Bus Stop. He has hit a block with his song writing abilities and isolating at his mums wasn’t helping. He is best friends and also grew up with Cade, so is invited to Anna Island to help break his funk and to be best man at his friend’s wedding. When he sees Gwenny, he has an instant attraction and she becomes his unwitting muse, she isn’t fazed by who he is, nor treat him as anything special, which is refreshing. But he soon realises, that she has a secret that is also eating away at her, like him and that there may be more connections between them than they could ever know.
A tale of two sisters, both who meet someone to love, but not in the most ideal situation and need to wait and see if the relationships will persevere. Gwenny definitely has the hardest path to a happy life and holds herself to blame for past mistakes and what has happened to those close to her and how they have reacted to her, because of that. Levi has the same problem and they fit together perfectly. Em has led the path to love, for her younger sister and been a trailblazer away from the restrictive upbringing they both faced. An interesting pair of books, with the stories coming to a satisfactory conclusion and not leaving you hanging at the end of either of them. I received an ARC copy of this collection from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the books above.
This is my first time reading something by this author. These were an entertaining and enjoyable set of books. The stories were well-written and flowed nicely. The plot in each book was interesting and had some twists and turns that made for an interesting and intriguing story. The characters were strong and well-developed. The author did a nice job of bringing this story to life with vivid descriptions and well-developed scenes. I enjoyed this set and am looking forward to reading more by this author.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
This wonderful reading experience includes both books in “The Summer My Life Began” set. You will read about Em, Cade, Gwenny, and Levi. You will be caught up in music, cooking, the beach, happiness, love, secrets, and even heartbreak. The two books are: Book One: Em, and Book Two: Gwenny. The first book is Em’s who, because her life was always laid out for her, had no experience in active decision-making for her future and now struggles making the right choices and changes in her life. The other book is Gwenny’s, who is trying to change her past ways and grow up. In both of these books, we experience the struggle all of us have faced to make changes from the familiar, the comfortable, or the expected. When we panic, we fall back on what we know, and it takes courage to step forward and face something new when you are not sure where it will take you. But that’s part of growing up and we all face it in our own way to become the person our experiences have shaped us to be. Re-live some of that as you read the stories of Em and Gwenny.
This book will give you much to think about and people to care about as you watch what they go through. Don’t miss this wonderful set. You’ll really enjoy it.
This was a great book set. Each book is well written with well written characters. Each book hooked me from the beginning and kept me interested throughout. I definitely will be reading more from this author. I recommend reading.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
this was a wonderful set to read aimed at young adult. Easy to read. Captivating. I personally enjoy reading some of the young adult novels even though I am a grandma. I look forward to more from this author.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Good stories full of mystery, tension, searching, and love!
The descriptions were so well that I could imagine and see everything as if on a screen.
The style was easy to read and follow.
A recommendation for any YA fan.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
A boxed set with two great stories about sisters Em and Gwenny and the different life styles they live, and what happens when they go to away two years apart for a Summer to Anna Island. Cade comes into Em’s life and Levi comes into Gwenny’s. I enjoyed reading this book by an Author I have not read before. I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Mystery, drama, angst, love and fun; all while discovering themselves. These are wonderful stories! I enjoyed them so much and can’t wait for more. Shannon is so talented.
Summer love is the best
This really is a young adult romance series, something I don’t usually read. I did like the storylines and the characters were pretty good. I would recommend it for a young adult. I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this box set from Booksprout.
This book was a great summer read! I got it free from the author. The title the summer my life began was inspirational!
This played as a perfect movie as I read it. I highly enjoyed this! Shannon Greenland never disappoints.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.