Cliched ‘Summer’ a worthy beach read

Marin Bishop’s life is about to get complicated. At 30, she is a rising star at a prestigious New York City law firm, daughter of the most prominent attorney in Philadelphia, engaged to a Wall Street banker and working on her biggest case yet: a merger between a pharmaceutical and genetic testing company.

Rachel Moscowitz has always wanted to know the identity of her sperm donor father. As a production assistant on an ancestry search show in Los Angeles, she discovers his name and embarks on a cross-country drive to Provincetown, to the bedand-breakfast owned by her paternal grandmother, Amelia Cabral.

Jamie Brenner’s third novel, “The Forever Summer,” is about five women who confront the secrets of their past.

One misstep at work and Marin is rocked by a broken engagement, a forbidden affair, her parents’ impending divorce and unemployment. When Rachel appears at her apartment proclaiming she is her half-sister, Marin decides a weekend at a beachside cottage would do her good, and she joins her.

What they discover about their lives, and those of Marin’s mother, Blythe, Amelia and her wife, Kelly, is at the heart of this summer read.

If you like stories about family drama, sisterhood and relationship tension, you’ll like “The Forever Summer,” in spite of its many cliches and predictable ending.