The Second Home

A Novel

By: Christina Clancy

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert

Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's Summary

Tender and compassionate, incisive and heartbreaking, Christina Clancy's The Second Home is the story of a family you'll quickly fall in love with and won't soon forget.

This program includes a bonus conversation with the author.

After a disastrous summer spent at her family summer home on Cape Cod, 17-year-old Ann Gordon was left with a secret that changed her life forever and created a rift between her sister, Poppy, and their adopted brother, Michael.

Now, 15 years later, her parents have died, leaving Ann and Poppy to decide the fate of the Wellfleet home that's been in the Gordon family for generations. For Ann, the once-beloved house is tainted with bad memories. Poppy loves the old saltbox, but after years spent chasing waves around the world, she isn't sure she knows how to stay in one place.

Just when the sisters decide to sell, Michael reenters their lives with a legitimate claim to the house. But more than that, he wants to set the record straight about that long-ago summer. Reunited after years apart, these very different siblings must decide if they can continue to be a family - and the house just might be the glue that holds them together.

Told through the shifting perspectives of Ann, Poppy, and Michael, this assured and affecting debut captures the ache of nostalgia for summers past and the powerful draw of the places we return to again and again. It is about second homes, second families, and second chances. 

"Christina Clancy writes with warmth, wit, and wisdom about fantastically human characters. A novel of family and place and belonging." (Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Great Believers)

"Christina Clancy writes with empathy and rich detail.... Tender and suspenseful, Clancy's debut explores the nature of home as well as the nature of family itself - given and chosen." (Chloe Benjamin, New York Times best-selling author of The Immortalists)

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press  

©2020 Christina Clancy (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

Not the Summer Read I was looking for

I was looking for a light Summer read. This is filled w/death, drama, rape and unhappiness and then all ends well. The book did hold my attention. Would I recommend it-no.

Torture- skip it...

I don’t even know where to start. Everything was presented as an afterthought- the relationship between michael and Anne just grossed me out, the parents and children’s relationship was a mystery and the author kept annoyingly Reminding us that this was a portrayal of her home on the Cape and Obviously told all of her local friends she would give them indications of this in the story... all the unnecessary details were just exhausting. I have never wanted a book to end so badly.

hometown feel -good story with twists and turns.

talented performance. easy to get into to the story. loved the anticipation between characters.

Great Pandemic Read

I loved this book! I loved the characters, the setting, the plot and the twists. The writing was compelling and vivid, the dialogue was real and the story unfolded naturally. Spending time with the Gordons on Cape Cod and enjoying the sunsets and the sounds of the seagulls took me right out of the anxiety of this pandemic.