Review The Summer Seekers by Sarah Morgan

Today I'm reviewing the latest novel, The Summer Seekers, from my absolutely all time favorite author, Sarah Morgan and a recent release from the publisher that makes the world go round Harlequin. I have loved EVERYTHING she's ever written and the streak continues.
Enjoy!

ISBN-13: 9781335180926
Publisher: Harlequin
Release Date: 5-18-2021
Length: 432pp
Source: Netgalley for review
Buy It: Publisher/Amazon/B&N/IndieBound

ADD TO: GOODREADS

Overview:

“The ultimate road-trippin’ beach read and just what we all need after the long lockdown.” —Booklist, STARRED REVIEW for THE SUMMER SEEKERS

“The Summer Seekers is the ultimate road trip book.”—Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Get swept into a summer of sunshine, soul-searching and shameless matchmaking with this delightfully bighearted road-trip adventure by USA TODAY bestselling author Sarah Morgan!

Kathleen is eighty years old. After she has a run-in with an intruder, her daughter wants her to move into a residential home. But she’s not having any of it. What she craves—what she needs—is adventure.

Liza is drowning in the daily stress of family life. The last thing she needs is her mother jetting off on a wild holiday, making Liza long for a solo summer of her own.

Martha is having a quarter-life crisis. Unemployed, unloved and uninspired, she just can’t get her life together. But she knows something has to change.

When Martha sees Kathleen’s advertisement for a driver and companion to share an epic road trip across America with, she decides this job might be the answer to her prayers. She's not the world's best driver, but anything has to be better than living with her parents. And traveling with a stranger? No problem. Anyway, how much trouble can one eighty-year-old woman be?

As these women embark on the journey of a lifetime, they all discover it's never too late to start over…

Read an excerpt:

1

KATHLEEN

It was the cup of milk that saved her. That and the salty bacon she’d fried for her supper many hours earlier, which had left her mouth dry.

If she hadn’t been thirsty—if she’d still been upstairs, sleeping on the ridiculously expensive mattress that had been her eightieth birthday gift to herself—she wouldn’t have been alerted to danger.

As it was, she’d been standing in front of the fridge, the milk carton in one hand and the cup in the other, when she’d heard a loud thump. The noise was out of place here in the leafy darkness of the English countryside, where the only sounds should have been the hoot of an owl and the occasional bleat of a sheep.

She put the glass down and turned her head, trying to locate the sound. The back door. Had she forgotten to lock it again?

The moon sent a ghostly gleam across the kitchen and she was grateful she hadn’t felt the need to turn the light on. That gave her some advantage, surely?

She put the milk back and closed the fridge door quietly, sure now that she was not alone in the house.

Moments earlier she’d been asleep. Not deeply asleep—that rarely happened these days—but drifting along on a tide of dreams. If someone had told her younger self that she’d still be dreaming and enjoying her adventures when she was eighty she would have been less afraid of aging. And it was impossible to forget that she was aging.

People said she was wonderful for her age, but most of the time she didn’t feel wonderful. The answers to her beloved crosswords floated just out of range. Names and faces refused to align at the right moment. She struggled to remember what she’d done the day before, although if she took herself back twenty years or more her mind was clear. And then there were the physical changes—her eyesight and hearing were still good, thankfully, but her joints hurt and her bones ached. Bending to feed the cat was a challenge. Climbing the stairs required more effort than she would have liked and was always undertaken with one hand on the rail just in case.

She’d never been the sort to live in a just in case sort of way.

Her daughter, Liza, wanted her to wear an alarm. One of those medical alert systems, with a button you could press in an emergency, but Kathleen refused. In her youth she’d traveled the world, before it was remotely fashionable to do so. She’d sacrificed safety for adventure without a second thought. Most days now she felt like a different person.

Losing friends didn’t help. One by one they fell by the wayside, taking with them shared memories of the past. A small part of her vanished with each loss. It had taken decades for her to understand that loneliness wasn’t a lack of people in your life, but a lack of people who knew and understood you.

She fought fiercely to retain some version of her old self—which was why she’d resisted Liza’s pleas that she remove the rug from the living room floor, stop using a step ladder to retrieve books from the highest shelves and leave a light on at night. Each compromise was another layer shaved from her independence, and losing her independence was her biggest fear.

Kathleen had always been the rebel in the family, and she was still the rebel—although she wasn’t sure that rebels were supposed to have shaking hands and a pounding heart.

She heard the sound of heavy footsteps. Someone was searching the house. For what, exactly? What treasures did they hope to find? And why weren’t they trying to at least disguise their presence?

Having resolutely ignored all suggestions that she might be vulnerable, she was now forced to acknowledge the possibility. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so stubborn. How long would it have taken from pressing the alert button to the cavalry arriving?

In reality, the cavalry was Finn Cool, who lived three fields away. Finn was a musician, and he’d bought the property precisely because there were no immediate neighbors. His antics caused mutterings in the village. He had rowdy parties late into the night, attended by glamorous people from London who terrorized the locals by driving their flashy sports cars too fast down the narrow lanes. Someone had started a petition in the post office to ban the parties. There had been talk of drugs, and half-naked women, and it had all sounded like so much fun that Kathleen had been tempted to invite herself over. Rather that than a dull women’s group, where you were expected to bake and knit and swap recipes for banana bread.

Finn would be of no use to her in this moment of crisis. In all probability he’d either be in his studio, wearing headphones, or he’d be drunk. Either way, he wasn’t going to hear a cry for help. Calling the police would mean walking through the kitchen and across the hall to the living room, where the phone was kept and she didn’t want to reveal her presence. Her family had bought her a mobile phone, but it was still in its box, unused. Her adventurous spirit didn’t extend to technology. She didn’t like the idea of a nameless faceless person tracking her every move.

There was another thump, louder this time, and Kathleen pressed her hand to her chest. She could feel the rapid pounding of her heart. At least it was still working. She should probably be grateful for that.

When she’d complained about wanting a little more adventure, this wasn’t what she’d had in mind. What could she do? She had no button to press, no phone with which to call for help, so she was going to have to handle this herself.

She could already hear Liza’s voice in her head: Mum, I warned you!

If she survived, she’d never hear the last of it.

Fear was replaced by anger. Because of this intruder she’d be branded Old and Vulnerable and forced to spend the rest of her days in a single room with minders who would cut up her food, speak in overly loud voices and help her to the bathroom. Life as she knew it would be over.

That was not going to happen.

She’d rather die at the hands of an intruder. At least her obituary would be interesting.

Better still, she would stay alive and prove herself capable of independent living.

She glanced quickly around the kitchen for a suitable weapon and spied the heavy black skillet she’d used to fry the bacon earlier.

She lifted it silently, gripping the handle tightly as she walked to the door that led from the kitchen to the hall. The tiles were cool under her feet—which, fortunately, were bare. No sound. Nothing to give her away. She had the advantage.

She could do this. Hadn’t she once fought off a mugger in the backstreets of Paris? True, she’d been a great deal younger then, but this time she had the advantage of surprise.

How many of them were there?

More than one would give her trouble. Was it a professional job? Surely no professional would be this loud and clumsy. If it was kids hoping to steal her TV, they were in for a disappointment. Her grandchildren had been trying to persuade her to buy a “smart” TV, but why would she need such a thing? She was perfectly happy with the IQ of her current machine, thank you very much. Technology already made her feel foolish most of the time. She didn’t need it to be any smarter than it already was.

Perhaps they wouldn’t come into the kitchen. She could stay hidden away until they’d taken what they wanted and left.

They’d never know she was here.

They’d—

A floorboard squeaked close by. There wasn’t a crack or a creak in this house that she didn’t know. Someone was right outside the door.

Her knees turned liquid.

Oh Kathleen, Kathleen.

She closed both hands tightly round the handle of the skillet. Why hadn’t she gone to self-defense classes instead of senior yoga? What use was the downward dog when what you needed was a guard dog?

A shadow moved into the room, and without allowing herself to think about what she was about to do she lifted the skillet and brought it down hard, the force of the blow driven by the weight of the object as much as her own strength. There was a thud and a vibration as it connected with his head.

“I’m so sorry—I mean—” Why was she apologizing? Ridiculous!

The man threw up an arm as he fell, a reflex action, and the movement sent the skillet back into Kathleen’s own head. Pain almost blinded her and she prepared herself to end her days right here, thus giving her daughter the opportunity to be right, when there was a loud thump and the man crumpled to the floor. There was a crack as his head hit the tiles.

Kathleen froze. Was that it, or was he suddenly going to spring to his feet and murder her? No. Against all odds, she was still standing while her prowler lay inert at her feet. The smell of alcohol rose, and Kathleen wrinkled her nose.

Drunk.

Her heart was racing so fast she was worried that any moment now it might trip over itself and give up.

She held tightly to the skillet.

Did he have an accomplice?

She held her breath, braced for someone else to come racing through the door to investigate the noise, but there was only silence.

Gingerly she stepped toward the door and poked her head into the hall. It was empty.

It seemed the man had been alone.

Finally she risked a look at him.

He was lying still at her feet, big, bulky and dressed all in black. The mud on the edges of his trousers suggested he’d come across the fields at the back of the house. She couldn’t make out his features because he’d landed face-first, but blood oozed from a wound on his head and darkened her kitchen floor.

Feeling a little dizzy, Kathleen pressed her hand to her throbbing head. What now? Was one supposed to administer first aid when one was the cause of the injury? Was that helpful or hypocritical? Or was he past first aid and every other type of aid?

She nudged his body with her bare foot, but there was no movement.

Had she killed him?

The enormity of it shook her.

If he was dead, then she was a murderer.

When Liza had expressed a desire to see her mother safely housed somewhere she could easily visit, presumably she hadn’t been thinking of prison.

Who was he? Did he have family? What had been his intention when he’d forcibly entered her home?

Kathleen put the skillet down and forced her shaky limbs to carry her to the living room. Something tickled her cheek. Blood. Hers.

She picked up the phone and for the first time in her life dialed the emergency services.

Underneath the panic and the shock there was something that felt a lot like pride. It was a relief to discover she wasn’t as weak and defenseless as everyone seemed to think. When a woman answered, Kathleen spoke clearly and without hesitation.

“There’s a body in my kitchen,” she said. “I assume you’ll want to come and remove it.”

My Review:

The Summer Seekers
Sarah Morgan
 

Sarah Morgan hits another home run with her latest stand-alone novel, The Summer Seekers, a romping fun summer read mixed with some serious family drama-thons that will take readers on the armchair adventure of their life from the English countryside to travel along The Mother Road, Route 66. The storyline is ingenious, the dialogue flows beautifully and the sights and sounds of the road will resonate with all of us who are familiar with the historic highway and will make those who don’t know it want to travel it too. As she weaves through the small towns and big cities in the USA she gives readers insights into her character’s insecurities and how through friendship and a nevere-give-up spirit has them grow into the best of themselves. All her star characters are wonderful but it’s Liza who really stands out because she has the most to lose and Sarah’s brilliant at making her see the right path to follow. Martha and Kathleen both come in a close second as they both effectively clean the skeletons out of their closets too. Fans of Susan Elizabeth Phillips and those who like a rip-roaring chick-lit as a side dish to their serious women’s fiction will find this impossible to put down.

At eighty Kathleen Harrison gets a wake- up call when an intruder breaks into her home and she’s injured. A wake up call that maybe she’s due one last epic road trip, her cat will be fine, her garden will grow in her absence and her rock-star neighbor will have to fend off his own fans because she’s packing her bags and heading for the Mother Road, she’s driving the 2400 plus miles of Route 66. Now to convince her overprotective daughter that she’s got all her marbles and oh maybe she should hire a driver too.

Lisa Lewis has her own problems, her twin teenaged daughters and her husband only think of her as a housekeeper, cook, chauffeur and a fixer. In other words the world she always considered perfect is shattering, so the last thing she needs is to deal with her eighty year old mother’s desire to go half way around the world on an epic road trip. But when her mother asks her to look in on the cat it also gives Liza the perfect opportunity to be alone at her mother’s cottage and do some soul searching. What she didn’t know was that her mother’s sexy rock-star neighbor would play a role.

Martha’s life is literally in the toilet, she’s divorced with no job while living at home with her parents sister. She can never seem to anything right and she can’t seem to make her sleezy ex-husband go away or block him from her phone. Then she reads a help wanted ad to be a driver for an elderly lady who wants to travel across America, the bad thing is that Martha is a terrible driver, but she bucks up and applies for the job. You never know, maybe the old lady won’t notice her inaptitude when it comes to operating an automobile, or maybe Martha will be fired before she ever sees a strip of Route 66.

Praise:

"An inspiring, romantic and joyful tale that proves it really is never too late for adventure!"—Laura Jane Williams, bestselling author of Our Stop on The Summer Seekers

"The Summer Seekers is warm-hearted, tender and wise, a truly uplifting story of life, love and daring to discover what lies beyond what you know. I loved travelling across America with Kathleen, Liza and Martha on their joyous, epic road trip!"—Miranda Dickinson, bestselling author of The Day We Meet Again on The Summer Seekers

"Morgan's breezy writing style draws readers in immediately, and her wisecracking dialogue entertains while providing insights into her characters' thoughts...Warm, funny and often insightful, The Summer Seekers is a satisfying dose of escapism with plenty of heart."—Shelf Awareness on The Summer Seekers

"The Summer Seekers by Sarah Morgan is the story of not only a once in a lifetime road trip but also the importance of being true to oneself. It will resonate with every reader no matter how old, what stage of life you’re in, or what part of you that may need to be rediscovered."—The Girly Book Club on The Summer Seekers

"Morgan's brilliant talent never ceases to amaze."—RT Book Reviews

"Morgan is a masterful storyteller....For fans of Jojo Moyes, Taylor Jenkins Reid, and Stacey Ballis."—Booklist review

About the author:
Sarah Morgan is a USA Today and Sunday Times bestselling author of romance and women's fiction. She has sold over 18 million copies of her books and her work has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and Booklist.
Sarah lives near London, England with her family and when she isn't writing or reading, she likes to spend time outdoors hiking or riding her mountain bike.
Join Sarah's mailing list at sarahmorgan.com for all book news. For more insight into her writing life follow her on Facebook at facebook/AuthorSarahMorgan and on Instagram at @sarahmorganwrites Contact Sarah at sarah@sarahmorgan.com