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Sensible
thirty-six-year-old Sophie Anderson has always known what to do. She
knows her role in life: supportive wife of a successful architect and
calm, capable mother of two. But on a warm summer night, as the house
grows quiet around her and her children fall asleep, she wonders what’s
missing from her life. When her husband echoes that lonely question,
announcing that he’s leaving her for another woman, Sophie realizes she
has no idea what’s next. Impulsively renting a guest cottage on
Nantucket from her friend Susie Swenson, Sophie rounds up her kids,
Jonah and Lacey, and leaves Boston for a quiet family vacation, minus
one.
Also minus one is Trevor Black, a software entrepreneur who
has recently lost his wife. Trevor is the last person to imagine
himself, age thirty and on his own, raising a little boy like Leo—smart
and sweet, but grappling constantly with his mother’s death, growing
more and more closed off. Hoping a quiet summer on the Nantucket coast
will help him reconnect with Leo, Trevor rents a guest house on the
beautiful island from his friend Ivan Swenson.
Best-laid plans
run awry when Sophie and Trevor realize they’ve mistakenly rented the
same house. Still, determined to make this a summer their kids will
always remember, the two agree to share the Swensons’ Nantucket house.
But as the summer unfolds and the families grow close, Sophie and Trevor
must ask themselves if the guest cottage is all they want to share.
Inspiring
and true to life, The Guest Cottage is Nancy Thayer at her finest,
inscribing in graceful, knowing prose matters of the heart and the
meaning of family.
