Hello Summer by Mary Kay Andrews

Hello, Summer by Mary Kay Andrews
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hello, Summer by Mary Kay Andrews is this year’s exciting beach read with a twist. Readers get both the MKA they love plus the journalist she once was as she recounts this tale of a newspaper family. Grayson Hawkins manages The Silver Bay Beacon in Silver Bay, Florida, while her younger sister Conley has left the fold and is an award-winning journalist in Atlanta, Georgia.

When Conley’s latest job offer doesn’t pan out, she finds herself heading south to her Florida hometown. While she’s only there for a visit with her grandmother who has a property on the beach, she finds her reporting skills are needed for the family newspaper when a big-shot politician is found dead in a one-car accident at 3 a.m.

Since she happened to stumble across the accident on her way home from an outing with a life-long friend, she is in the perfect position to cover the accident which leads into covering a small-town scandal. Soon she is not only reporting for her family newspaper, she’s stringing for bigger markets in both newspaper and broadcast arenas.

The whole accident story turns into a mystery. What caused the one-car accident? Why did the politician deed his 800-acre farm back to his first wife? Why was his second wife holding him prisoner in his own home? Why was Conley getting a death threat?

The novel is interspersed with journalistic accounts of the accident and follow-up stories along with chatty gossip-type dispatches from a long-time local columnist. The reporting is top notch as it accounts for the details that unfold that include a case of elder abuse. The story becomes a page-turner as readers won’t be able to put it down until the final details are dispatched.

Add to the mix a sweet romance as Conley reunites with a local she once had major fantasies about. The two share several romantic beach walks, one which ends in a hot love scene.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting April 18, 2020.

One of my favorite summer beach-read authors is Mary Kay Andrews. I especially enjoyed this novel with its journalistic facet. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy a fast-pace mystery with a beach angle.

I’d like to thank St. Martin's Press. and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.


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