Set on the Florida coast at a summer camp for adults run by five friends—who call themselves “the Wildflowers”—Jill Sanders’ SUMMER’S END is the series wrap-up and tells the story of reserved redhead Aubrey Smith and Aiden, River Camps’ first employee and contractor. (Series readers might remember that he is Wildflower Elle’s cousin.)
Told over a period of three years, readers see familiar events unfold from Aubrey’s and Aiden’s perspectives as they begin their friends-with-benefits arrangement after an electrifying first meeting just after the friends began renovating the camp. But it’s in the present day that the meat of the story unfolds. Everyone at River Camps is busy with Zoey’s (the protagonist of SUMMER NIGHTS) upcoming wedding, and Aubrey is realizing that her beloved found family is moving into a new stage of life, while she isn’t. A new scheme from her controlling father has her leaning on Aiden, both publicly and privately, more than she’d ever like. But it’s Aiden who’s ready for everything; he’s known he’s loved Aubrey for years now, but has respected her wishes to keep their arrangement in the shadows.
So what happens when the guy loves the woman who doesn’t believe in love? A well-known situation in romance, but Sanders makes this one believable and understandable with a sympathetic portrait of Aubrey’s horrible childhood. With it providing much of the narrative’s emotional thrust, it’s sad and sweet and satisfying to watch everything unfold. SUMMER’S END also gratifyingly flips classic tropes on their head, like kickass women rescuing dudes (not damsels) in distress. The prose is very well edited and the plot expertly paced, making the whole book flow easily and naturally. Full of understandable obstacles and fleshed-out characters, SUMMER’S END proves to be a great addition to the highly-rated series of interconnected standalone romances. Add to that glimpses of the happy endings of other familiar couples and it has all the elements fans know and love.
SUMMER’S END is a sweet and satisfying conclusion to Jill Sanders’ Wildflowers series. Full of heart, emotion, and a bit of heat, this low-stakes contemporary romance about two people learning to trust and to love is both delightful and engaging.
~Remy Poore for IndieReader