That Summer Feeling

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 13 MAR 2023

Uplifting moments of friendship, family, and self-discovery provide charming texture to this breezily straightforward queer romance from Morrissey (A Thousand Miles). A year after Garland Moore's husband gave her divorce papers for Valentine's Day, she accepts an invitation to an adults' week at a summer camp in Georgia's Blue Ridge Mountains. There, she encounters a man she never thought she'd see again: the handsome stranger she literally ran into in the airport on the way to her honeymoon, their encounter sparking a cozy vision of an alternate future for herself. Could this be her chance to make that vision a reality? Maybe, but her best camp experiences keep happening with his sister, Stevie, instead, forcing Garland to reevaluate things she thought she knew about herself. Though Garland and Stevie face bumps in the road, the obstacles are easily overcome, and the lack of drama is refreshing despite its occasional improbability: both women's exes make plays to get them back but are utterly reasonable in the face of newfound rejection. The mild implausibility is more than made up for by the story's pleasantness; everyday suffering (particularly that faced by the LGBTQ community) exists only as a haze in the background. The result is an ideal vacation read.