The Guest Cottage by Nancy Thayer

Sophie Anderson is dumbstruck when her husband Zach of 16 years comes home and announces he wants a divorce. He has fallen for his younger and attractive co-worker and feels that Sophie should have known it was coming, after all, she really is more about their two children than she is about Zach.

Is that true?

Zach decides it is best if he moves in with his lover right away and give Sophie the summer to prepare for the divorce. Sophie totally blindsided needs to get away with the children and have time to think. She rents a house on Nantucket from a friend for two months.

Trevor Black is dumbfounded on what to do with his 5-year-old son Dylan. After the sudden loss of Trevor’s wife, Dylan has taken up habits that concern Trevor. When a friend offers him a chance to stay a couple of months in a home on Nantucket Trevor thinks that may be just the break he needs and time alone with Dylan to help him through the loss.

Turns out, Trevor’s friend is a relative of Sophie’s friend and they have double booked the Nantucket home by accident.

When Sophie and Trevor discover the dilemma they decide that the house is big enough for the two families to both stay, after all neither wants to give up this much-needed break. Sophie and her two children will take one wing of the home and Trevor and Dylan the other. They agree to try this for a week and see how it goes.

I really enjoyed The Guest Cottage. Yes it was predictable. Yes some things were a little too convenient. Perhaps a little too much was put on the age difference between Sophie and Trevor (she was 36 and he was 30 and it is brought up A LOT by Sophie, event referring to herself as “almost 40”.. I can guarantee you when I was 36 I never once said that I was almost 40. ; ) I don’t care I liked it anyway.

Nantucket in literature seems to be the backdrop for many a lovely summer read. I admit I am a sucker for those “have to get away” books and the characters land in a sweet rental or back in their home town. I liked Sophie and enjoyed the easiness of the read. I listened to this on audio and narrator Janet Metzger had a good voice for most of the characters (the children’s voices were sweet), however by the end of the audio I picked up on Trevor having an accent I had not heard earlier. It could have been me.

Recommended for good summer reading or listening.

Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 10 hours and 41 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Audible.com Release Date: May 12, 2015

8 thoughts on “The Guest Cottage by Nancy Thayer”

This sounds really good. I’m adding it to my tbr list!

I agree, though it was a little predictable, but still enjoyed it. I think these type of books are part of the reason I am still single, post divorce 18 years ago. I want to walk into my Nantucket beach house and have my perfect man waiting for me, a did like to be in love within a few weeks. LOL

I loved this one…and hated the husband…LOL. I think if we like Sophie, we probably want to see only good things for her, and for him, well…not so much.

Thanks for sharing…glad you enjoyed it.

You are reading & listening to a lot of great fun summer reads. Books sometimes help take us away from our reality. Glad you are able to find some that do that for you. {{Hugs}}

I enjoyed it – a good summer read.

I won this on Goodreads and my review goes up Thursday. It’s pretty much the same as yours. It’s a good story but you have to suspend disbelief on some things. I just read another of her novels this week, Beachcombers, and liked it better, but still needed to just accept the fact that 4 people in one family can all find love in the same summer. Glad you’re finding some enjoyable summer reads. I just read a review of Wendy Wax’s A Week At the Lake that also sounds good in this vein.