Some people have a way of feeling like home, no matter how far you’ve run from
them.
With unfinished business and a house full of memories she’d rather leave buried,
Summer Hayes reluctantly returns to her small coastal hometown of Ocean Grove.
What she didn’t expect was Chase Whitmore—the boy next door—to still be there.
Coming home was supposed to be simple. But ten years of silence and distance
haven’t been enough to untangle what was left unfinished between them. And the
longer Summer stays, the harder it becomes to remember why she left in the first
place.
She left to forget her old life.
She came back to find he’d been holding onto it all along.
First love.
Second chances.
One tie that time and distance couldn’t break.
Lyrics of Summer is a standalone second chance romance featuring a decade of silence, a love that never left, and a homecoming that changes everything.
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Lyrics of Summer is a raw and emotional depiction of love, loss, and everything in between. This book doesn’t just touch on the hard things. It dives into them headfirst. I feel like it gives a really honest telling of what abuse looks like and what it can do, not just to the victim but to everyone in the victim’s life. It shows how the harm ripples out and stretches through an entire town, and then how those wounds respond to love, friendship, success, and healing.
The Story
In a small coastal town, Summer Hayes was the quiet girl with a big voice, and Chase Whitmore was the boy next door. At eighteen, Summer left and took a piece of Chase with her. He stayed behind and loved her in silence for ten years. Now she’s come home to rewrite her ending, but there’s one chapter between them that was never finished.
Reading Experience
Reading this book was like falling in love with characters and then letting their stories carve deep wounds into your heart. Then it pours salt in those wounds, cleans them, bandages them, rips the bandage off, and pours salt in them again, over and over, until the bitter end. I’m not going to say too much about that ending, but really, Tierney Page? Really?
Writing Style
The writing is real, raw, and authentic. It doesn’t gloss over the hardships, the trauma, the pain, or the details that so often go unspoken when it comes to loss, grief, and abuse. It puts those very real tragedies right in your face in a deeply painful and heartfelt way, and then mixes them with music, love, laughter, friendship, and success.
Characters
These characters burrowed their way deep into my heart and soul, and I don’t know if I’ll ever forget them. At the center of it all is Summer, who sings and writes music. Her connection to music is her outlet and her own kind of therapy, and I think it’s what keeps her going through everything she faces.
She and the people around her are small-town teenagers with imperfect lives who make imperfect decisions and suffer the consequences of other people’s choices, choices they had little or no control over. Sometimes they stick together and find their strength in each other. Sometimes they mess up, run, and hide. Sometimes they find strength in themselves, and sometimes they give up. All of it makes them feel so human, so lovable, and so tragic all at once.
Heartbeat
For me, this book has two heartbeats. The most obvious one is abuse and trauma, and the ripple effect of everything that comes after: how someone deals with it, gets away from it, and heals from it. It also shows how that kind of past can shape your whole future, from how you see yourself to how you relate to others, the walls you build, and the relationships you do or don’t let yourself have.
The second heartbeat, as the title suggests, is music. It’s something I’ve felt my whole life, growing up and as an adult. Sometimes you don’t have the words. You don’t know how to express what you’re feeling, what you’ve been through, what you think, or what you want. Then you find a melody or a lyric that says it all, or that makes you feel things you don’t even have a name for. Music is a heartbeat of life itself, and I loved that it runs underneath this whole story. I relate so much to using songs, music, and lyrics to feel, to heal, and to express yourself.
Final Thoughts
This is a beautiful, heart-wrenching, painful book. I recommend it to readers who love gritty stories that tell the truth and depict things as they really are without sugarcoating bad experiences. Even in what could otherwise be a dark story, this one still finds moments of beauty and strings of hope.
Thank you to Hambright PR for letting me read and review this book.
Tierney Page is a contemporary romance author and content creator based in Melbourne, Australia. At 32, she crafts stories filled with relatable characters, swoon-worthy MMCs, heartfelt connections, and spice that keeps readers turning pages late into the night.
When she’s not writing, Tierney enjoys traveling, doting on her fur babies, and indulging in a good book. Most days, you’ll find her curled up on the sofa in cosy fluffy socks, a steaming cup of coffee in hand, a cat on her lap, and a spicy romance novel keeping her company.
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