Review #39: A Summer Affair, by Elin Hilderbrand

A Summer Affair is the story of Claire Crispin, a wife and mother of four, who embarks on a year-long affair with Lock Dixon, the millionaire head of the local children's charity. Claire is vaguely acquainted with Lock - she was friendly with his wife Daphne before a devastating car accident changed Daphne's personality - when he asks her to not only co-chair the Nantucket Children's Summer Gala, but to provide the auction item, a blown glass chandelier. Claire hasn't been in her glass studio in over year, since a fall caused her to go in to premature labor with her youngest son, and she surprises everyone, including herself, by agreeing.

To plan the gala, Claire begins spending evenings with Lock, and it isn't long before they begin an affair. As their relationship becomes more serious, Claire pulls away from her husband, her family, her friends. She struggles with guilt and jealously, and goes so far as to accuse her husband of having an affair. Eventually, things come to a head at the gala, and Claire realizes she must end the game of limbo and make a decision.

This novel left me feeling a little flat. I never really sympathized with any of the characters, and struggled to find redeeming qualities in any of them. I wanted to either root for Claire and Lock to beat the odds and find a way to be together, or be angry at them for breaking their marriage vows, but I honestly couldn't care enough about them to feel one way or the other.

I've read other books from Hilderbrand, and this was definitely not my favorite.