Feature Book By Mary Kay Andrews
Summer Rental
Sometimes, when you need a change in your life, the tide just happens to pull you in the right direction…. Ellis, Julia, and Dorie. Best friends since Catholic grade school, they now find themselves, in their mid-thirties, at the crossroads of life and love. Ellis, recently fired from a job she gave everything to, is rudderless and now beginning to question the choices she’s made over the past decade of her life. Julia—whose caustic wit covers up her wounds–has a man who loves her and is offering her the world, but she can’t hide from how deeply insecure she feels about her looks, her brains, her life. And Dorie has just been shockingly betrayed by the man she loved and trusted the most in the world…though this is just the tip of the iceberg of her problems and secrets. A month in North Carolina’s Outer Banks is just what they each of them needs.
Ty Bazemore is their landlord, though he’s hanging on to the rambling old beach house by a thin thread. After an inauspicious first meeting with Ellis, the two find themselves disturbingly attracted to one another, even as Ty is about to lose everything he’s ever cared about.
Maryn Shackleford is a stranger, and a woman on the run. Maryn needs just a few things in life: no questions, a good hiding place, and a new identity. Ellis, Julia, and Dorie can provide what Maryn wants; can they also provide what she needs?
Five people questioning everything they ever thought they knew about life. Five people on a journey that will uncover their secrets and point them on the path to forgiveness. Five people who each need a sea change, and one month in a summer rental that might just give it to them.
About the Author
Mary Kay Andrews is the author of the New York Times bestselling The Fixer
Upper, Savannah Breeze and Blue Christmas, as well as Deep Dish, Hissy Fit, Little Bitty Lies and Savannah Blues.
She also wrote ten critically acclaimed mysteries, including the Callahan Garrity mystery series, under her real name, Kathy Hogan Trocheck. Her mysteries have been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, Agatha and Macavity Awards. .
A native of St. Petersburg, Florida (and a diplomate of the Maas Bros. Department Store School of Charm), Trocheck earned a B.A. in journalism from the University of Georgia in 1976 (Go Dawgs!). She started her professional journalism career in Savannah, Georgia, where she covered the real-life murder trials which were the basis of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. She left journalism after a ten-year stint as a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. .
She is a frequent lecturer and writing teacher at workshops including Emory University, The University of Georgia’s Harriet Austin Writer’s Workshop, the Tennessee Mountain Writer’s Workshop, and the Antioch Writer’s Workshop. .
As a lifelong “junker” the author claims to know the location of every promising thrift store, flea market and junkpile in the southeastern United States, plus many parts of Ohio. .
Married to her high school sweetheart, she is the mother of two grown children and a proud grandmother. After a brief hiatus in Raleigh, NC, she and her husband moved back to their old neighborhood in Atlanta, where they live in a restored 1926 Craftsman bungalow. She divides her time between Atlanta and her restored beach cottage on Tybee Island, GA.
Summer Rental: A Discussion With Mary Kay Andrews
All of the previous Mary Kay Andrews books have been set in Georgia. Why did you choose to base Summer Rental elsewhere?
My family and I lived in Raleigh, NC for three years, and I was always fascinated by the Outer Banks, but never had a chance to visit. So with a new set of characters and a new storyline, it felt right to explore a little.
What attracted you to North Carolina’s Outer Banks as a setting for the novel?
The Outer Banks are a fairly remote location—it’s not easy to get there, and it’s a place steeped in history and romance. And I liked the sense of community—there are plenty of old mom-and-pop tourist courts and motels and old weather-beaten beach cottages, it’s not all high-rise condos and golf course communities on the East Coast.
You rented a beach cottage in Nags Head, NC while writing Summer Rental. Tell us about the experience of living in the town you were writing about.
Setting is so important in all my novels, even when I create a fictional place, I have to find inspiration for that place. Staying in Nags Head, I got to walk the beaches “the girls” in Summer Rental walk, dine in the restaurants where they eat, even shop at the local Harris Teeter. I need all those sensory touchstones to help me build the imaginary world of the novel.
Do you often “run away from home” to write? What effect does this have on you as the writer and on the stories you create?
Like my readers, I lead a pretty mundane, if busy life—there are groceries to buy and meals to cook and bills to pay, all of which can be distracting if you’re trying to create and inhabit that imaginary world I just talked about. When I run away, it’s just me and the laptop—and a bottle of cheap chardonnay. I get my head in the book, and I can stay there for hours or days at a time. When I’m all by myself, my characters seem to be more willing to “come out to play”.
In your books there is always a house that is just as much a character as your flesh and blood creations. What speaks to you about old homes in need of some TLC?
Old houses seem to harbor secrets that speak of past lives and troubles and joys. The accumulated patina of time is an irresistible lure for me, I can just sense all the possibilities just waiting to be explored.
What informed your creation of the Nags Head cottage “Ebbtide” as a character in Summer Rental? Is “Ebbtide” based on an actual house?
I was fascinated by the “Unpainted Aristocracy”, a row of venerable ocean-front houses that have resisted storms, floods, termites and wrecking-balls, some for more than a hundred years. I was lucky enough to visit two such homes while I stayed at Nag’s Head, and to interview their owners about their family’s lives there over the years. From their stories, I was able to spin a new tale about an imagined house, Ebbtide. What I wouldn’t give to own such a house—even one as rundown as Ebbtide.
In Summer Rental, as in all the Mary Kay Andrews books, the strong female characters band together to battle forces beyond their control. What is so compelling about the bond of female friendship as subject matter for your books?
I’ve been blessed to have so many long-standing female friendships, that I know first-hand the awesome might of girl power! Ellis, Dorie and Julia’s friendship was inspired by my own circle of girlfriends who met in junior high, more years ago than we care to admit. We might fuss and feud amongst ourselves occasionally, but woe be to any outsider who tries to mess with any one of us! And I know, from hearing from my readers, that they value those close female friendships just as much as we do.
Mary Kay Andrews is a pseudonym. Why have you chosen to write your last eight books under an assumed name?
Outstanding warrants under my own name! Just kidding. I wrote ten mysteries under my real name, but when I had an idea to write a book set in Savannah, with an antique-picker as a protagonist, I was afraid my mystery fans wouldn’t accept such a story. So I invented a pen-name made up of my children’s first names.
How did you make the move from journalist to author?
Because I was writing my first book while I was still a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I had to be very pragmatic in my approach to the project. I used a lot of reporting tools to make the move; interviewing other authors, researching the genre (mystery) I wanted to write in, networking to search for names of a likely editor and agent, and finally, giving myself a hard and fast deadline to get that first manuscript written. A dear friend and mentor at the paper who’d published nearly two dozen books sent my first manuscript to her editor at a big New York publishing house, and he eventually bought not my first book, but my second. I didn’t quit my day job until after I’d handed in my first manuscript. And even then, I wrote free-lance newspaper and magazine pieces for the first year between leaving the paper and publication of that first novel.
As a journalist turned author, what is your perspective on the future of your former profession? As an author, how has your involvement with media outlets changed as things have shifted form print to online?
I’m still a newspaper junkie, so I guess it’s true old journalists never die. I think newspapers have to survive in some form or another in order for us to keep the crooks and scoundrels in our world at bay. I know we won’t always have a newspaper thrown in our driveway every day, but am hopeful that journalism will make the transition to whatever form the future holds. In the meantime, as an author, I’ve come to realize the importance of social media for creating a vital and welcoming community for readers. I blog, I Twitter, I Facebook, and with newspapers and magazines cutting back on book reviews and coverage, I pay close attention to the online world of book bloggers.
What do you hope your readers take away from your books?
I want to give my readers the gift of escape—of a few hours spent with characters they care about and root for—or against. I want to create a world they’ll willingly inhabit—if only for a few hours. I want to write a big, juicy, delicious peach of a book. And I want to give them a happy ending, because we don’t always get that in real life. And I hope as soon as they turn that last page, they’ll call their girlfriends and say “You gotta read Mary Kay Andrews.”
Summer Rental Read by Isabel Keating
With warm weather on the horizon comes the perfect audiobook to accompany those long car rides to the beach: Summer Rental (On Sale June 7, $39.99). Written by women’s fiction favorite and New York Times bestselling author Mary Kay Andrews, Summer Rental follows five people over the course of one summer as they go on a journey that will uncover their secrets and point them on the path to forgiveness.
Isabel Keating returns to narrate her sixth Mary Kay Andrews audiobook, and the program includes a bonus conversation between the author and narrator where the two discuss everything from Andrews’ passion for old homes to the southern background they both share. Keating, a big Andrews fan, praises the immersive quality of Summer Rental saying “I still am vibrating with the scenario that you created there in Nags Head, it’s just as if I were there,” while Andrews divulges the impetus behind her writing: “I want to give my readers joy” she explains in the interview. “If I can give my readers a big juicy peach of a book, then that makes me happy and it makes them happy, and when they’re happy then it’s all good and it gives me more motive to keep writing.” This is one that will appeal to both long-time Andrews fans and those newer to her work.
Listen to an audio clip of Summer Rental.
Praise for Mary Kay Andrews and her Bestselling Blockbusters
“Summer Rental is like a great day at the beach. You don’t want it to end. No need to pack a suitcase or get on a plane. Enjoy a vacation any time of year with the ever-delightful Mary Kay Andrews.” —Susan Elizabeth Phillips
“ “Mary Kay Andrews has perfect pitch when it comes to endearing, smart-mouth heroines.” —Anne Rivers Siddons
“ “Mary Kay Andrews writes with great spirit and vitality.” —Luanne Rice
“ “Quirky, endearing characters make Savannah Blues one heck of a good time.” —Jennifer Crusie on Savannah Blues
“ “Deep Dish is one delicious read. Mary Kay Andrews has cooked up a tale y’all will savor to the last bite. ” —Paula Deen on Deep Dish
“ “This authentic tale of cleaning up life’s messes and self-discovery is bright, engaging and thoughtful, enlivened by Andrews’s quirky characters and lovely backwoods setting.” —Publishers Weekly on The Fixer Upper
“ “You’ll want to bitch, bond, and run through the backyard sprinklers in your underwear with [the characters].” —Washington Post on Little Bitty Lies
“ “Spirited... Andrews writes with tongue firmly in cheek...fun.” —Publishers Weekly on Savannah Breeze
“ “A good old-fashioned romp with a modern Southern belle taking no prisoners . . . entertains on many levels.” —Nashville Tennessean on Hissy Fit
“ “A juicy tale.” —Raleigh News & Observer on Deep Dish
“ “A breezy story . . . brimming with good spirits and feisty humor.” —Booklist on Little Bitty Lies
