Summers at the Saint by Mary Kay Andrews #bookreview #womensfiction #romance #mystery

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Title: Summers at the Saint

Author:  Mary Kay Andrews

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Publication Date: May 7, 2024

Page Count:  443

My rating: 4 stars

About the book:

Book your summer escape with a “mesmerizing mix of mystery and romance” (Publishers Weekly, starred) from the New York Times bestselling author of The Homewreckers and The Newcomer.


Welcome to the St. Cecelia, a landmark hotel on the coast of Georgia, where traditions run deep and scandals run even deeper. . . .

Everyone refers to the St. Cecelia as “the Saint.” If you grew up coming here, you were “a Saint.” If you came from the wrong side of the river, you were “an Ain’t.” Traci Eddings was one of those outsiders whose family wasn’t rich enough or connected enough to vacation here. But she could work here. One fateful summer she did, and married the boss’s son. Now, she’s the widowed owner of the hotel, determined to see it return to its glory days, even as staff shortages and financial troubles threaten to ruin it. Plus, her greedy and unscrupulous brother-in-law wants to make sure she fails. Enlisting a motley crew of recently hired summer help—including the daughter of her estranged best friend—Traci has one summer season to turn it around. But new information about a long-ago drowning at the hotel threatens to come to light, and the tragic death of one of their own brings Traci to the brink of despair.

Traci Eddings has her back against the pink-painted wall of this beloved institution. And it will take all the wits and guts she has to see wrongs put to right, to see guilty parties put in their place, and maybe even to find a new romance along the way. Told with Mary Kay Andrew’s warmth, humor, knack for twists, and eye for delicious detail about human nature, Summers at the Saint is a beach read with depth and heart.

Summers at the Saint by Mary Kay Andrews is a women’s fiction novel that mixes a bit of romance with a murder mystery. The story in Summers at the Saint is one that is told by changing the point of view between the characters and also by a bit of flashing back to the past.

Traci Eddings grew up along the coast of Georgia where she came from a modest background and was one of the locals who’s family couldn’t afford the luxury St. Cecelia, a landmark hotel, also know as the Saint. It was known in town that the rich came from all over to stay at the Saint and others were simply known as the Ain’ts. One summer Traci and her best friend from town got jobs at the Saint and that is where Traci met her husband, the son of the wealthy owners of the Saint.

Now twenty years later Traci is running the Saint herself after he husband passed unexpectedly. Looking to fill the staff Traci tries some new ideas to recruit staff and make it a profitable summer including getting her neice to stay and help despite her brother in law’s objections. Things definitely don’t go as planned however when a murder takes place on the secured grounds of the hotel and Traci’s father in law passes leaving her ownership of the Saint in question.

Mary Kay Andrews is one of those authors that if I get in a slump or find myself muddling through some sub par books I can also count on one of her books to bring my spirits back. Summers at the Saint was no exception to that fact when I immediately found myself transported to this old resort and watching as the summer staff took over. Just as I had images of Baby’s time at Dirty Dancing lodge popping into my head we get murder and mayhem to dive into making this story fly by! Definitely one I’d recommend and an author I’ll always return to reading.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online:

Goodreads  /  Amazon

About the author:

MARY KAY ANDREWS is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 30 novels (including Bright Lights, Big Christmas; The Homewreckers; The Santa Suit; The Newcomer; Hello, Summer; Sunset Beach; The High Tide Club; The Weekenders; Beach Town; Save the Date; Christmas Bliss; Ladies’ Night; Spring Fever; and Summer Rental, all from St. Martin’s Press, as well as The Fixer Upper; Deep Dish; Savannah Breeze; Blue Christmas; Hissy Fit; Little Bitty Lies; and Savannah Blues, all Harper Collins), and one cookbook, The Beach House Cookbook.

A native of St. Petersburg, Florida, she earned a B.A. in journalism from The University of Georgia (go Dawgs!). After a 14-year career working as a reporter at newspapers including The Savannah Morning News, The Marietta Journal, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where she spent the final ten years of her career, she left journalism in 1991 to write fiction.

Her first novel, Every Crooked Nanny, was published in 1992 by HarperCollins. She went on to write ten critically acclaimed mysteries, including the Callahan Garrity mystery series, under her real name, Kathy Hogan Trocheck. In 2002, she assumed the pen name Mary Kay Andrews with the publication of Savannah Blues. In 2006, Hissy Fit became her first New York Times bestseller, followed by dozens more New York Times, USA Today and Publisher’s Weekly bestsellers. To date, her novels have been published in German, Italian, Polish, Slovenian, Hungarian, Dutch, Czech and Japanese.

She and her family divide their time between Atlanta and Tybee Island, GA, where they cook up new recipes in their restored beach homes, The Breeze Inn and Ebbtide—both named after fictional places in Mary Kay’s novels, and both available to rent through Tybee Vacation Rentals. In between cooking, spoiling her grandkids, and plotting her next novel, Mary Kay is an intrepid treasure hunter whose favorite pastime is junking and fixing up old houses.