The Summer Cottage — Susan Kietzman

Spanning two summers decades apart, Susan Kietzman's poignant new novel explores the complexities of the people -- and places -- that shape our lives…

Helen Street spent every summer of her childhood at her family's cedar-shake cottage on Long Island Sound. The youngest of four, she shared her mother Claire's athletic genes and relished the orchestrated games and competitions that filled those warm, endless days. Unlike her older siblings -- pretty, popular Charlotte, ambitious Thomas, middle-child Pammy -- Helen rarely felt the sting of her mother's judgment.

Thirty years later, with her brother and sisters scattered, Helen is her mother's sole caregiver. Claire, now terminally ill, has one last family game in mind: summoning all her children for a weekend of contests that will secure their inheritance -- and offer a chance of winning the summer cottage. During this time together, Helen, Charlotte, Pammy, and Thomas will revisit their long-ago decisions and assumptions. And they will face new choices that could shatter their fragile kinship -- or reveal a family's extraordinary power to remember, to forgive, and to grow…