I'm actually surprised I made it to the end of the book. What a snore fest. I really tried to like it and kept hoping that it would improve but unfortunately, no luck.

The story takes place on Nantucket. Carley has just lost her husband, Gus, who in turn left her with two young daughters to raise and no money, only their family home. Stressed about finances and wanting to stay home to raise her girls, she decides to open a B&B as she loves to entertain and bake, etc. Also, her husband's best More...

3.5 stars I seem to be in a women's fiction mode lately and I'm not sure why. I also seem to be craving these women fiction types that occur on the beach--ya know, all those books that have bare feet on the cover that seem to be the craze right now. Anyway, after finishing an Elin Hilderbrand book and finding that my library did not have another of her's available (no surprise there) I hooked up w/Nancy Thayer by way of the Similar Novelist app. Although the story style and locale (Nantucket) More...

Awful! This is the novel version of a Lifetime movie, complete with unbelievable characters who have soap opera names. The most laughable dialogue takes place among these characters along the improbable storyline. Carley's every whim of an idea comes off without a hitch. A tag sale? Every item is snatched up as soon as the unwanted junk is displayed, including used electric nose hair clippers! A bed and breakfast? Up and oh so successfully running within months, including house renovations, perm More...

Heat Wave by Nancy Thayer is a book I chose, like most books from the library, at random and from mostly aesthetic expressions. I don't think I even read the inside flap. You know the old saying, don't judge a book by its cover. Well I have found that the more experienced a reader, the better you can judge books by a glance. That doesn't mean you don't have a few flops every once and a while. When I first started reading Heat Wave I thought it would be one of those flops. The writing had the cha More...

Where to start when reviewing Heat Wave, by Nancy Thayer...? First of all, the title doesn't really work, because I think more of the action of the book takes place during the winter in Nantucket, and there is very little time spent during the summer. Also, whose legs are on the cover? Now that I've finished the book, the cover is a little cryptic because there aren't any scenes of people sitting on a pier with their feet dangling over the ocean--or anything remotely like that--despite the beach More...

I'm surprised that I made it to the end because I was on the verge of DNF'ing several times. It's not a horrible book, it was just dull. Our heroine, Carley marries young after getting pregnant. Her husband dies unexpectedly at age 37, leaving this 32 year-old widow with two daughters and no financial support. Challenges arise, and go away. Again, and again. Everything neat and pat. It's really more about building a life on Nantucket in some ways. There were many characters, but most were quite More...

This is not the worst book I've cracked this year, but it's far from the best. I picked it up at the library (thank God I didn't spend any money on it) for some very light summer reading...you know the kind...it keeps you turning the pages but doesn't tax the intellect at all.
Well, it filled the bill on the intellect part, but boy, did I want to stop turning the pages.
It's not that every book I open should be "Crime and Punishment", but really...there's a fine line between light and flaky like a More...

I really, truly liked this story. It's a story of love, betrayal, loyalty, and grief. The story most strongly focuses on death and how it affects the deceased person's spouse, parents, children, and friends. Writing this makes the story sound morbid, which it is NOT!
It's about rebuilding lives and finding what your life is, after this tragedy.

This is actually a fun, hopeful, upbeat story. It takes place on Nantucket and there is a lot of camaraderie, laughter, and activity. It's very well-told. More...

I am absolutely positive that I am incapable of writing a summer novel. I am also absolutely positive that Nancy Thayer can. And…she does it with skill, knowledge and just the right amount of juicy bits.
Heat Wave is this summer’s Nancy Thayer novel. I was able to get a copy from Amazon Vine. The true start of summer for me is accumulating great summer books from authors like Nancy Thayer and Claire Cook and Jane Green.
I eat them up like candy. Give me a Nantucket or Maine or Cape Cod setting and More...

For chick-lit readers who long to recapture those angst-filled teenage years but are now older with kids, this is the novel for you. Now, instead of wondering if that special guy is going to ask you or your best friend to the prom, you can wonder if your hunky doctor husband is seducing your best friend while treating her kids’ cough. Yes, now you can have all the sappy, whiny emotions but with grownup problems. In reality, the gist of the novel – a widow whose husband leaves her with two kids, More...

I usually enjoy Nancy Thayer's writing for her relatable characters, interesting settings, humor, and insight. However, I found this recent book to be lacking her usual flare. The setting - an old house in Nantucket - was picturesque, but even it was not mined as deeply as it could have been. The story centers on the young widow Carley and her efforts to keep the house and generate an income for her and her daughters after her dead husband's financial affairs are found to be in ruins. It is also More...

Carley and Gus have been married 13 years, she stays home with their two girls in their huge Nantucket home that was Gus's mother's family home. Gus is a partner in his father's law firm. Life is good. Until one night Gus doesn't come home from the office. Carley contacts her in-laws and her father-in-law goes back to the office to find his only child dead at his desk.

This sets up a whole mass of events for Carley from dealing with her children, her in-laws and her friends, plus the financial bu More...

Carley Winsted has always wanted what she has right now in her life: a husband, two children, and a wonderful home. She even enjoys spending time with her in-laws, Russell and Annabelle.

But when Gus dies unexpectedly from a heart attack, her life is turned upside down. Not only does she discover that she now has financial problems, due to her husband's bad investments, but her in-laws have displayed a tendency to try to control her life.

Living on Nantucket Island year round is a challenge. And t More...

Nancy Thayer is an author I have counted on to deliver an interesting look at women's lives since I fell in love with her first book, "Stepping." She puts family relationships in the forefront of her plots. In this new volume, "Heat Wave," Carley is faced with the sudden death of her successful husband, her own grief, her two daughters' lives, and her loving but problematic in-laws.

Carley needs to find a way to get on with her life. She looks around her Nantucket home and wonders how she can pos More...

Heat Wave by Nancy Thayer
Carly, a new widow is on Nantucket Island with two children to raise.
Book starts when Carly had met Gus and they got married due to her upcoming pregnancy. Gus ia s lawyer on the island and live there year round.
She was only there for summer work and had done many other jobs over the years.
She was finding out she had no money in her husbands accounts as he had invested unwisely but she had the big old family house.
She has friends and they brainstorm cuz she doesn't want More...

Finally, in her most recent books Thayer has strayed away from the female character who has a crisis in her life but is able to move beyond it thanks to the wealth that she has allowing her to start over, redo a house on Nantucket etc.

In Heat Wave, we find Carley working on Nantucket. She attends a party one night and when she least expects it, finds the man of her dreams and marries him. She settles into the community on Nantucket and finds two wonderful friends, Maud and Vanessa. Unexpectedly, More...

This is one of those that I had to be wary of when a 'scene' was coming and just skip ahead to the next group of text. She's just too graphic for my taste.

I'm glad it was fiction, because if the characters were real, I would feel so much more sadness for them. You see, Thayer has taken the view of the 'world' as she's written this book. She's inaccurately represented the love, the joys, the passion, the sadness of the people. I was glad for the times when she got the grief and sadness close to r More...

For the first two thirds of this book, I thought I was reading a Danielle Steel romance - girl has great life, tragedy strikes, girl rebuilds her life and finds new love. However, the tone changes entirely when an unexpected event changes the lives of Carley, her daughters and her good friends Maud and Vanessa. Carley seems to have a great life as a stay at home Mom on Nantucket but tragedy intervenes when her young husband dies of a heart attack. Carley is forced to change her home into a bed a More...

Nancy Thayer is a new author to me so I was excited to read her book. I liked Heat Wave enough to probably try another one by this Author; I like her writing style, I appreciate her obvious love of Nantucket, and it kept my interest enough to want to see how the story ended. I just didn't like her characters very much and when that happens, I struggle. There's the main character Carley who has experienced an unexpected loss but seems pretty cold throughout the book, except to her love interest. More...

IM REALLY ONLY LIKE 75% DONE but I have way to many other good books to read I cant really spend another minute on this. I'm sorry. I am now a "book quitter" I never wanted to be a "book quitter" but I just can't . I enjoyed reading about Carleys every day life and her sprouting new love with her dead husbands best friend. It really is very sweet how she finds love again and her 2 children learn to live again. But i really is predictable. Im in the moment where her new love is going away to Hawa More...

Making the startling discovery that her family finances are in dire straits is only the latest shock endured by Carley Winsted after her husband’s sudden death from a heart attack. Resisting her in-laws’ well-meaning overtures to take in Carley and her two daughters, the young widow instead devises a plan to keep her family in their beloved home, a grand historic house on the island of Nantucket. The solution is right at Carley’s front door: transforming her expensive, expansive house into a bed More...

Three women of privelege on Nantucket Island deal with tragedy and hardship by: 1. committing adultery 2. stealing their best friend's husband 3. getting pregnant after two one-night stands (thereby not knowing who fathered the baby) 4. defending the homosexual lifestyle 4. sending their children to ballet and riding lessons 5. Opening a bed and breakfast. OK, so it wasn't all bad behavior, but these issues were prominent.

Quaint and dramatic, I almost put this novel down a couple of times. The More...

The main character of this book is Nantucket. The author writes with utter love about the beaches, the shops, the traditions, the impact of weather and ferry schedules and the tourist season on everyone's lives. The story is almost, but not quite, just an excuse for the author and for us, the readers, to spend almost 300 pages mentally strolling the beloved island. This is a beach read in the best sense of the word. It's entertaining, not too taxing, a simple story simply told. Bad things happen More...

There was a lot going on in this book! Carley, whose husband, Gus, dies unexpectedly, lives in a famiy home on Nantucket with her daughters, Cisco and Margaret. Her in-laws, very old family money and name, do their best to control her. Carley finds out Gus left them with no money and from there she embarks on some money making schemes which according to her in-laws are totally inappropriate for a Winstead. She has a tag sale to clean out the house and then rents out a room and then opens a Bed & More...

Not sure where my obsession with books about Nantucket and that general area come from (since I've never even been there), but I am hooked. Much like the books of Elin Hildenbrand, Thayer is able to transport her readers into the world on the Eastern seaboard. Her books, while not as good on the character or location development (the island serves merely as a backdrop, her stories could take place anywhere) are engaging, the stories easy to relate to (though the things she considers to be plot t More...

A great beach read -
Making the startling discovery that her family finances are in dire straits is only the latest shock endured by Carley Winsted after her husband’s sudden death from a heart attack. Resisting her in-laws’ well-meaning overtures to take in Carley and her two daughters, the young widow instead devises a plan to keep her family in their beloved home, a grand historic house on the island of Nantucket by opening a bed-and-breakfast.

When her late husband’s former law partner keeps More...

This was not a bad book by any stretch, it was just predictable and the word usage drove me crazy. "She swooped up Paul and stashed him in the high chair." Well, really? Who swoops up a baby and stashes them anywhere? "She swooped down upon the buffet table and inhaled the delicacies." Seriously? That wasn't the characters personality, she wouldn't have swooped and inhaled. I know these are nit picks, but obviously the story wasn't engaging me so intensely that I ignored weird word usage! I have More...

From the Goodreads synopsis:

"Unerringly perceptive, superbly written, every page packed with the warmth and compassionate wisdom that have become Nancy Thayer’s trademark, Heat Wave tells the moving story of a woman who, after her seemingly perfect life unravels, must find the strength to live and love again.

Making the startling discovery that her family finances are in dire straits is only the latest shock endured by Carley Winsted after her husband’s sudden death from a heart attack. Resisting More...