Review: Summerland Cove by Ellen Baker

Summerland Cove by Ellen Baker

Blurb from Goodreads:

Lindy has the summer of a lifetime planned at her family’s beloved cottage in Summerland Cove, Maine, where she’s spent summers all her life and where she and her husband David met as teenagers. She’s slated big events three weekends in a David’s fiftieth birthday party, her parents’ fiftieth anniversary party, and her oldest daughter Hailey’s wedding. But when David doesn’t show up for his own party, everything about the life they’ve created together is thrown into question, as the shattered family sets out looking for him. Has he been in an accident? God forbid, been the victim of a crime? Or is it something more cliché—a midlife crisis, an affair? Surely, he’ll show up for his beloved daughter’s wedding—won’t he? 

The agonizing days tick by and still no David. Lindy’s four nearly grown children are panicked. Lindy struggles to remain calm, even as long-buried details of the family’s past begin to surface, offering distressing clues. Meanwhile, her mother seems to be harboring secrets of her own, her father has grown alarmingly absent-minded, and Hailey wrestles with whether she should get married at all—even if her father does turn up.

A richly drawn novel of mothers, marriages, and one endearingly messy family, Summerland Cove beautifully evokes the crisp air and rocky beaches of coastal Maine, while poignantly revealing how complicated histories can shape the present in unexpected ways.

 The ending of this nearly ruined the entire book for me.  It was almost this mystery where all these other family secrets started unfolding but the big mystery was not good.  It was infuriating.  If you like family drama and big secrets and lies, this book will be for you. 

Summerland Cove comes out next week on June 2, 2026 and you can purchase HERE.  

David had said he didn't want a big party for his fiftieth, but Lindy had blazed ahead planning one, anyway. The inspiration had struck one cold night in January, at home in Cranston. Their daughter Hailey's wedding was set for August 7 in Maine. Lindy's parents' fiftieth anniversary happened to fall the week before, and David's birthday was the week before that. "The summer of a lifetime," she'd told David as he'd crawled into bed. "Three parties, three weekends in a row. We'll get all the kids to spend two full weeks in Maine." He'd slipped off his glasses and sighed, kissed her good night, and switched off the lamp. She'd taken that as a yes. 

Now it was go-time, D-Day, David's Day, as she'd been referring to it in her mind. The weather, thank God, was glorious-eighty-two and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. It was the perfect late-July-in-Maine day that people dreamed about all winter long.