Books like Summerlong by Dean Bakopoulos

Twenty‑five year‑old Belly Conklin returns to the family summer home on the coast, where a cancer diagnosis forces her to confront love, loss, and growing up amid the familiar rhythm of beach life.

Amid writer's block and a looming deadline, a skeptical romance novelist and a disenchanted literary author trade their craft: she must write a happy ending, he a Great American Novel, as they race to finish before summer ends.

Set in the 1830s Midlands, George Eliot’s Middlemarch intertwines village life, politics, and the struggles of its characters to explore social reform, gender roles, and community hypocrisy.

A suspenseful look inside the seemingly perfect marriage of Jack and Grace, where love, secrecy, and abuse mask a household of hidden violence.

Caseworker Linus travels to a remote orphanage to investigate ragged kids and their enigmatic caretaker Arthur, only to discover that the island’s magical children—and his own heart—are part of something larger than he imagined.

Jack, a terminally ill widower, survives a miraculous recovery after his wife dies in a car accident and sets out to reunite his children at her South Carolina oceanfront childhood home.

In the sun-soaked sands of Hina Beach, Whitney’s first love turns into bitterness, yet nine years later she must seek the help of the man she once despised.

Seventeen‑year‑old Jessie on Nantucket in 1969 faces family secrets as the Levin siblings navigate civil‑rights protests, a Vietnam‑deployed brother, a pregnant sister in Boston, and a historic summer that mirrors the nation’s turmoil.

A woman separated from a cruel husband travels to Greece to find him, uncovering painful secrets and the fragile boundaries that divide their lives.

A summer romance between a rugged ranch owner and a dedicated firefighter sparks feelings that may evolve into lifelong love.

A woman fleeing her polygamous compound ends up in rural Oklahoma with a farmer grieving the loss of his wife.

Judith Arnold: Daddy's Girl Sometimes a father and his daughter have things to work out. Sometimes a woman can help, as widower Kevin Medina learns when he and one-year-old Alex meet Natalie Baines. Can Natalie be the mother Alex needs -- and the wife Kevin wants? Muriel Jensen: Home, Hearth, and Holly Bart Megrath has never been to a quaint colonial town like Maple Hill, Massachusetts. He's never been through a hurricane. And he's never met anyone like Haley Whitcomb. Stormy times...a stormy relationship at times. But in Bart's opinion, a little turbulence makes life a lot more interesting. Bobby Hutchinson: Temperature's Rising Dr. James Burke has a reputation as the best surgeon at St. Joseph's -- and the most difficult. Hospital administrator Melissa Clayton discovers that his reputation for both is well deserved. She also discovers that she's attracted to him. Strongly attracted. No wonder the heat in the hospital isn't just from the weather outside!

A Philadelphia secretary marries a pharmaceutical researcher, hoping the marriage will grant her a life free of work. In Germany, her expectations clash with her husband's ambition and complexity, leading to new families, birdwatching, and perilous choices.

Twelve‑year‑old Addie braces for an exciting summer at her prairie home when cousins arrive, only to discover that friendship and family are more complicated than she imagined.

At a two-week Mallorca getaway, the Post family celebrates a 35th wedding anniversary and their daughter’s high‑school graduation, only to uncover long‑hidden secrets, old wounds, and tensions that threaten to unravel their lives.