Summer in a Bottle by Annie Rains

In this tender, uplifting novel for fans of Josie Silver and Rebecca Serle, a young woman returns to her North Carolina hometown hoping to make new memories, but finds history repeating itself—literally . . .

Dumped by her fiancé, opinion columnist Lyla Dune returns to small-town Echo Cove to heal, and to help her parents prep their house for sale. When she decides to open a time capsule she buried in high school, past memories lead her to a diary filled with memorable moments from the last summer she spent at home, right before college. Some of the events feel like they happened yesterday. That’s normal. Not so normal is that they actually start happening all over again . . .

Lyla gets a flat tire in the same spot and is saved by the same person. The same movie is playing at the theater. Her house has the same leak it once had. As her current summer increasingly mirrors that last one, Lyla worries it will end just as with a category 3 hurricane—and with losing Travis, the best friend she was always secretly in love with. If only she hadn’t been too scared to admit it.

She revisits other fears too, like the fear of rejection that led her to abandon her passion for fiction writing. And when she reconnects with Travis, Lyla becomes certain that unless she does what her younger self was unable to do, she’ll suffer the same regrets. But if this time around she can gather her courage, maybe the life that was falling apart when she arrived will fall back together—even better than before.

Kindle Edition, 343 pages

Publishing date April 29, 2025 

by Kensington Books

3.5/5 stars

I have recently discovered Annie Raines, she is a refreshing, clean author.

Summer in a Bottle is a perfect summer, beach read, which is exactly what I did on a recent vacation. The story started out at a great momentum with Lyla returning home to help her parents pack up their house to sell. It is here that Lyla reflects on her past, especially as she digs up her time capsule from 10 years previous. It was a fun read as she returns to a town and friends she quite suddenly abandoned. As things start to happen that reflect her last summer home, it opens up old wounds.

Summer in a Bottle is a story of friendship, lost loves and discovering oneself. It started out great, petered out a bit in the middle with an ending that picked up the pace. There was one trope that I’m not a fan of so that didn’t help, I won’t specify which one as it will definitely be a spoiler.

All in all this was a great beach read and an author that I will be reading more of.

 

My thanks to Kensington Books for a digital arc in exchange for a honest review