cover image Summers at the Saint

Summers at the Saint

Mary Kay Andrews. St. Martin’s, $29 (448p) ISBN 978-1-250-27838-8

In this mesmerizing mix of mystery and romance, Andrews (Bright Lights, Big Christmas) details one woman’s mission to ensure her late husband’s legacy. Four years after Traci Eddings’s husband, Hoke, died in a plane crash, she struggles to keep afloat the Eddings family’s long-running St. Cecelia resort hotel on an island off the Georgia coast. As employees leave for better opportunities, Traci hires a new executive chef and gets her niece, Parrish, to run the front desk, further straining her contentious relationship with her entitled brother-in-law, Ric, who’s trying to cut Traci out of his father’s will. Then tragedy rocks the hotel staff when someone close to Traci is murdered. As she works to keep guests happy during a police investigation, the hotel’s landscaper, Whelan, a former P.I., mounts an investigation of his own. Mutual attraction ignites between Traci and Whelan even as he unearths some unusual information about a decades-old drowning death at the Saint that tore apart Traci and her former best friend, Shannon. Andrews’s expert exploration of complex family dynamics, hidden secrets, and class divisions in a small resort town add authenticity to the gripping mystery and swoony romance. Series fans and newcomers alike will be riveted. Agent: Stuart Krichevsky, Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency, Inc. (May)