THE MAY HOUSE

Three sisters make a yearly pilgrimage to their grandmother’s beach house, a place that holds their dearest memories and most painful revelations.

In 1985, Grandma Vera makes the young May sisters promise to spend a week visiting her Victorian house overlooking the Pacific Ocean on Coronado Island every May for the rest of their lives. The children make a solemn oath over firepit s’mores and stick to it for the next 30 years. The three girls couldn’t be more different, although they’re recognizable types: Eldest Julia is Type A personified, middle girl Emily is the cynic with a secret, and baby Nora is the family diva. Each year, while their widowed father stays behind in Chicago, the girls grow from squabbling adolescents to moody teens to adults with nothing in common and little contact outside of their yearly summer idyll. This most interesting aspect of their sisterhood—their seemingly mutual lack of interest in each other—is unfortunately left unexplored in favor of more familiar conflicts. A constant in their Coronado visits is Nate, the surfer next door who at various times is Julia’s boyfriend or Nora’s crush. Early on, the novel skips ahead to 2019 as Nora and Emily arrive in Coronado to find that Julia is not just late but, for all anyone knows, has disappeared without a trace. The flashbacks of the girls growing up and both succeeding and failing at the game of life all go toward unraveling the mystery of Julia’s disappearance, something to do with a box of letters found years ago in Grandma Vera’s armoire. Although the novel travels on well-worn ground—a failing marriage, a struggling career, doubts about parenting—there’s enough companionable drama to steer us toward the novel’s startling end.

The quintessential beach read—women talking, shocking secrets, and a really hot guy.