What makes a good woman make a bad choice?
I've been turning that question over in my head since I finished this one on my drive home this morning. The sun was just coming up over the desert, and I was sitting in my driveway for an extra ten minutes because I needed to process. Carlos came out in his bathrobe asking if I was okay. I blamed allergies. Obviously.
Look, I picked up A Summer Affair because I needed something lighter after a brutal stretch of night shifts. Fourteen hours in the trauma bay, then fourteen hours of Elin Hilderbrand felt like the right kind of balance. And it was—mostly. But this book isn't quite the breezy beach read the title suggests. It's messier than that. More uncomfortable. Which, honestly? Made it better.
The Woman Who Couldn't Say No
Claire Danner Crispin is the kind of woman I see in the hospital all the time. The one who's running the PTA while managing a career while being the perfect wife while never asking for a single thing for herself. I've watched women like her show up in the ER at 2 AM with chest pain that turns out to be anxiety they've been ignoring for three years. That same kind of internal pressure—people pushed to their breaking point—drives the tension in Rise of Nine, though obviously with more alien invasions and less Nantucket. So when Claire starts slipping into an affair with a billionaire philanthropist, I didn't judge her the way I might have ten years ago.
Does that make it okay? No. But Hilderbrand doesn't pretend it's okay either. She just shows you how it happens. The small compromises. The rationalization. The way desire can sneak up on you when you've been running on empty for too long.
Isabel Keating's narration really sells this. Her voice for Claire has this fresh, sparkling quality—she sounds like a woman genuinely surprised by her own choices, not someone reading lines about being surprised. There's something in her delivery that puts you inside Claire's head, watching her make decisions you know are going to blow up.
Where Keating Stumbles
Okay, so here's the thing. Keating is excellent with the women. Claire, her friends, even the minor female characters all feel distinct and real. But the men? Ugh. Claire's husband Jason gets this accent that I couldn't quite place—is he supposed to be from somewhere specific? I genuinely couldn't tell. It pulled me out a few times, which is frustrating because the emotional stakes with Jason are actually pretty high.
The affair itself—with Lock Dixon, because of course a billionaire is named Lock—gets handled with more nuance than I expected. This isn't a romance novel where we're rooting for the cheating couple. It's messier. More like real life. I appreciated that Hilderbrand doesn't let Claire off the hook, even when she's clearly drowning.
Night Shift Approved (With Caveats)
This was perfect for my 3 AM charting sessions when the unit was quiet. The pacing is steady—not so slow that I zoned out during medication reconciliation, but not so twisty that I missed plot points when a patient called. That sweet spot of engaging-but-not-demanding that works for multitasking.
But I need to be honest: the ending left me a little cold. Not because it was unrealistic—actually, it felt very realistic. But after fourteen hours with these people, I wanted something more... resolved? Satisfying? Real life doesn't wrap up neatly, and neither does this book. That's either a strength or a weakness depending on what you're looking for.
My mom would probably hate this one. Too much infidelity, not enough consequences. But she's also the woman who watched all of The Affair and then pretended she didn't understand what was happening. So.
Who This Is For (And Who Should Skip)
If you're looking for a summer listen that's actually about something—about the choices we make when we're stretched too thin, about what happens when good people do selfish things—this delivers. Just don't expect it to be simple. And maybe skip it if you're going through anything complicated in your own marriage. Carlos asked why I was being extra nice to him after I finished this one.
I blamed the sunrise. Obviously.
