I've always been a real fan of Karen Swan's wonderfully atmospheric Christmas novels but haven't before tried any of her other novels. I chose "The Summer Without You" hoping for as much of a summer vibe as she gives to her Christmas based stories to get me in the summer mood.

The first I noticed was the sheer length of this book, it's a hefty 420 pages well beyond other books within this genre. It's a book clearly packing lots of story in, and this proved to be the case if sometimes to it's detriment.

The story of Rowena, a self employed photographer whose boyfriend Matt chooses to run off for 6 months to Asia, putting their relationship on pause rather than proposing leads us through a chance encounter to a house share in the exclusive Hamptons where Ro hopes to spend time doing the photography she loves and counting the days till her boyfriend comes home and she can pick up her life again.

With her lively housemates Hump, Greg and Bobbi she is soon drawn into the exclusive and wealthy Hamptons lifestyles. She meets town councillor and campaigner Florence who is trying to save the sand dunes which are being massively erroded by winter storms and which are needed to protect the properties along the shoreline. Florence though is receiving expensive gifts from a stranger and there's talk in town about the $3 million black hole in the council budgets and Ro doesn't want to believe her friend is guilty of wrongdoing.

There is also her new age yoga teacher friend Melody and her powerful older husband Brooke. They seem to be uber rich and although they are unwilling to share information about precisely what his job is. There is much of this book given over to strange attacks on Ro and Florence, even to the extent of a murder of an entirely useless character. There is a huge conspiracy thing going on that I found a little bit of a sideline that wasn't necessary. I truly kept skipping bits because it all seemed a bit of a surplus story that started well but got a bit melodramatic for my tastes.

The true heart of this book and the story that deserved to remain front and centre was the story of Tedd, the man Ro meets the moment she steps out of the can in the Hamptons. Shocked when he demands she deletes photographs she has taken of her two children, even to the point he threatens to destroy her camera she is shocked when later he asks her to take on a commission doing what he seemed so upset by. her photographing his two young children.

As Ro goes through home videos of Tedd's children she begins to question why their mother is no longer in their lives, why the perfect dream family has grown apart. She grows chose to Tedd but remains wary of him suspecting him of being less than upfront with her friend Florence. She is drawn to the two children and aware of her growing feelings for their father. Her fiance is on the other side of the world and she wants to believe he will propose when he comes home but what if it's not what she wants.

This is the true heart of the book, or should have been, but there was so much other padding put in it got lost at times. Had we dropped 50 pages and focused purely on this relationship it would have been a much better book. It would have felt more like I'd have established an emotional connection with its true story rather than it being sandwiched between bits that didn't matter so much.

The authors real fault was trying to capture the wealthy Hampton lifestyles when a story of a summer on a beautiful beach in a lovely town spent with a damaged family would have said so much more