Each summer four women gather for their ritual week of relaxation at a beach house, every year choosing a new location. All are wives of medical students when they begin vacationing together. The annual trip is suspended when one of the friends dies in a tragic accident. Stunned, the group slowly drifts apart, allowing time and their differences to create a rift. When plucky "Baby," who is half the age of the other ladies, marries into the crew, she attempts to reestablish the August ritual. A remote beach house on a barrier island off South Carolina's coast brings adventures of all sorts, and fresh emotions surface. The friends must come to terms with their differences and find a sense of unity in the midst of health issues, marital conflict, and infertility. VERDICT Southern fiction fans who love a solid beach read will find much to enjoy in Siddons's latest, which mixes a fun vacation tale with well-drawn characters and emotional depth. [See Prepub Alert, 1/26/14.]-Julia M. Reffner, Fairport, NY (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Maddy, Rachel, Barbara, and Melinda met when their husbands were in medical school and started a tradition of spending a week at a beach house every August that lasted until Melinda died in an automobile accident. Years later, when Melinda's husband remarries, they invite his new wife, a ditzy twentysomething nicknamed Baby, to join them and end up at her family's home on the South Carolina coast. Petty jealousy is the reigning emotion, and Baby makes a point of flaunting her youth and beauty and playing up the fact that the other women are old enough to be her mother. Making matters worse, each of the women has a life-changing secret. Their anguish boils over during a storm, and all four must come together to survive. Siddons' (Burnt Mountain, 2011) latest is a thoughtful portrait of women in crisis, the three older of them faced with an all-too-vivid reminder that they're aging while the youngest matures, thanks to their shared experience, and all recognize that friendship is a sustaining force. Siddons' many fans will feel right at home with this emotionally gripping, beach-themed read.--Donohue, Nanette Copyright 2010 Booklist

Three old friends and one newbie try to revive a vacation tradition, with mixed results.The self-styled Girls of August are an intrepid band of doctors wives who have gotten together for annual summer sprees ever since Corneliathe rich, blonde consort of party-animal physician Teddyinvited them to share her beach retreat. None of the other girlsRachel, Barbara and narrator Maddyactually liked Cornelia, but no matter; Teddy soon replaced her with the more copacetic Melinda. For the past three years, ever since Melindas tragic accidental deathTeddy was drunk at the wheelthe girls have stayed home, but then this summer, Baby, Teddys 20-something third wife, entices them to familiar Siddons territory, the South Carolina barrier islands. Babys opulent home is located on the deserted and fictional Tiger Island, virtually unpopulated except for a resident enclave of Gullah people. Gloriously incommunicado (the only cellphone having met its demise), the women drink, cook delicious meals and swim. But problems soon surface: Maddy suffers from intermittent nausea, Rachel almost drowns, and Barbara seems to be sliding into serious alcoholism. Baby is the source of much humor and rue among the 40-ish women: Not only is she blonde and independently wealthy like her predecessor, Cornelia, she enjoys flaunting her nubile figure by skinny-dipping. Perhaps to escape all the perimenopausal sarcasm, Baby disappears for long stretches. Is she having an affair with handsome Gullah fisherman Earl or merely plotting revenge? Someone removes the screen from Barbaras window, letting in stinging bugs, and Maddys bed collapses one night. Has it all devolved into the middle-aged Southern version of summer camp farce? Nothing unpredictable or challenging can survive the many clichsthe wise and vaguely mystical Gullahs, the stereotypically airheaded trophy wife and the other characters who somehow lack the mettle of Steel Magnolias but who might qualify as copper or tin.A slight bagatelle in which even the weightiest topics are sloughed off like suntan lotion in a tropical rainstorm. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.