Based on the beloved play, Same Time Next Year, by Bernard Slade.

“They turned on the TV and found a movie that was just starting: same time, next year with Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn. It was about a couple who meet at a seaside hotel in 1951 and decide to return together on the same weekend every year, even though they are both married to other people.”

Chapter one: It’s 2020, present day, when Link’s mother, Mallory Blessing, is placed on hospice and gives him instructions to call a mysterious number. It’s Jake McCloud. Tall, strapping, clean cut, and when he smiles… gah! But his WIFE is none other than Ursula DeGoursney, front runner in the upcoming presidential election. So yeah, Link is confused. HOW? Why? 🤷🏼‍♀️🧐 WHATS the backstory?

The subsequent chapters are all flashbacks starting with that sweet summer of 1993 when Mallory inherits a cottage on Nantucket, hosts her brother’s (Cooper Blessing) bachelor party and finally meets Cooper’s college friend Jake. And let me tell you… Jake is completely gobsmacked by Cooper’s little sister. Their phone calls, before meeting, we’re precious! Adorable! After watching Same Time Next Year, Mallory and Jake decide to do it, no matter what happens, and make it tradition. For TWENTY EIGHT summers they meet back at Mallory’s cottage. However, Jake is hung up on his hometown girlfriend, Ursula. She is his kryptonite and they have a history together. There is SO much AGONY in this story. Such deep sorrow. You go through life with Mallory, Jake, and Ursula. You FEEL for them. Love, longing, guilt, joy, misery, and confusion. You HOPE for them, even though you know it’s utterly wrong, living in their happy bubble one weekend per year, for three magical days.

Reading this, I found myself questioning if this was something out of All My Children, but it wasn’t a soap opera, this is Mallory and Jake’s real life. I 😭 BALLED 😭 my eyes out the last chapter. Tearing up now 🥺 Even though, I did in fact, read chapter one and knew from the book description that Mallory is on her deathbed. I got so wrapped up that I almost forgot. If you’ve read the Winter Street series you get to see a little of the Quinn family: the Christmas Eve party, Kelley and Mitzi, high school Ava Quinn. I sense this just isn’t it. It can’t be the end? There’s another one right? The last sentence of the final chapter, makes me feel like there’s another book? Maybe that’s just my hope and desire for closure. 😢🥺💔😭

Enough agony! LOOK at all the FIVE ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ star reviews. I agree! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Best one yet, Elin! The culinary dishes mentioned through the book are seriously 😋 mouth watering. 🤤 Tantalizing! I want Sarah Lee Chase to be my new guiding light with her Nantucket Open-House Cookbook. Also, when music is incorporated into a book I FEEL it so deeply. Now when I hear Cat Stevens playing hard headed women, don’t mind me crying. 😭 Give it a listen when you read this one!

“I love you too, Mallory Blessing, he says. I. Love. You. Too. It works; tears are standing in her eyes. She hears him – and, more importantly, she believes him.”
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I 👏🏼 am 👏🏼 WRECKED! You know the gif of Darla from Little rascals squishing a soda can?

Well, my heart and hope were in that little can that was smashed to smithereens 😭. Here’s what I know about Elin: ☝🏼, she’s the queen of the beach read, and ✌🏼she’s notorious for her cliff hangers. THAT ENDING IS A CLIFF HANGER RIGHT?🤪😩