22 Jul Staff Recommends: 28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand

Marilyn was born and raised in Shelbyville where she has lived her whole life.  She attended Shelbyville schools and went on to the University of Kentucky, obtaining a Business Administration degree and then working in the banking industry for 15 years.  Always having an interest in education, she decided to get her Masters’s degree in School Media Librarianship and worked as a school librarian for 15 years.  Marilyn now works part-time in the children’s department, and feels grateful to be a part of a caring staff that provides such wonderful services for the people of Shelby County.  Marilyn is happily married to David, with two grown children.

If you like Summer of 69 by Elin Hilderbrand, you’ll like 28 Summers, also by Elin Hilderbrand!

What’s the book about?

When Mallory Blessing’s son, Link, receives deathbed instructions from his mother to call a number on a slip of paper in her desk drawer, he’s not sure what to expect. But he certainly does not expect Jake McCloud to answer. It’s the late spring of 2020 and Jake’s wife, Ursula DeGournsey, is the frontrunner in the upcoming Presidential election.

There must be a mistake, Link thinks. How do Mallory and Jake know each other?

Flash back to the sweet summer of 1993: Mallory has just inherited a beachfront cottage on Nantucket from her aunt, and she agrees to host her brother’s bachelor party. Cooper’s friend from college, Jake McCloud, attends, and Jake and Mallory form a bond that will persevere — through marriage, children, and Ursula’s stratospheric political rise — until Mallory learns she’s dying.
Based on the classic film Same Time Next Year (which Mallory and Jake watch every summer), 28 Summers explores the agony and romance of a one-weekend-per-year affair and the dramatic ways this relationship complicates and enriches their lives, and the lives of the people they love.

Why Marilyn recommends it

Mallory lives in New York and shares an apartment with her best friend, Leland who is excelling in the city while Mallory’s dreams for her future are not going as planned.  Mallory’s life changes when she receives a call that she has inherited a small house on Nantucket which she comes to love.  It is when her brother asks to come and bring some friends to an ill-fated bachelor party during the Labor Day weekend that same time next year begins.

This bittersweet love story on the surface seems unbelievable but the author subtly suggests that even though two people may love each other, living their lives together may only diminish that love.