Four Novels about Summers in Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and Cape Cod

It is summer, but because of the pandemic, most of us are not going on beach vacations, or any other kind. I realize how fortunate I am that I and my family have our health, our jobs (which we can do from home) and our pleasant homes to shelter in. So I am not complaining, but I do miss summer vacations or some type of travel. I have turned to “summer”/beach novels for escape. It happens that three of the four such novels I have very recently read, in search of that summer feeling, have the word “summer” in their titles. All four are set in the storied New England area encompassing Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and Cape Cod, with all the history and magic suggested by those names. All four are reasonably well-written examples of a certain genre, with romance, family issues, obstacles and triumphs over those obstacles, all in gorgeous settings. Two of them are relatively light-hearted; the other two are a little bit heavier, darker, but only a little bit. Two of them feature surfers among their characters. The four novels all go down easy, and distract from the fact that most readers themselves probably do not have access to these settings, especially not during the pandemic. I am not going to “review” these four novels individually, but will list them here: “28 Summers,” by the bestselling author Erin Hilderbrand; “Girls of Summer,” by the also bestselling author Nancy Thayer; “Summer Darlings,” by Brooke Lea Foster; and “The Second Home,” by Christina Clancy. Note that the first two are the more lighthearted ones that I mentioned, so if you really want escape, you might want to go for those two.