It wasn’t fine. But everything that happened is all in the past. You have a whole new life, and so does he.” This is a great escapist read, full of Sarah Morgan's usual charm and wit. We have come across the characters in previous novels by the author. Fliss and Harriet are twin sisters, as different from each other as chalk and cheese. Harriet is the good twin, in Fliss's eyes, and she is the bad one, the two of them have built up a successful dog walking business, Bark Rangers. They live in Manhattan, and a driven Fliss is looking for opportunities to further establish themselves by growing the business. However, Fliss is feeling under pressure as the husband she married and divorced over a decade previously, is now a practicing vet at their favourite vet surgery. Fliss is feeling she really cannot handle meeting Seth Carlyle. We all have our go to authors, those who we have a little crush over because they get it right for us so often, taking us to our happy places and Sarah Morgan is one of mine. So the fact that Holiday in the Hamptons failed for me on so many levels is a bit gutting. New York was a city of eight million people. Eight million busy people, all running around doing their thing. It was a city of possibilities, but one of those possibilities was to live here anonymously, blending in. It had been perfect, until the day Seth Carlyle had taken a job in the vet practice they used regularly.

That’s the one.” The thought of it had Fliss rolling her eyes. She didn’t share Harriet’s tolerance when it came to misbehaving dogs. “If ever a dog was misnamed, it’s that one. He may be an angel on the outside, but on the inside he’s all devil.” Fliss and Harriet are twins and they run a dog-walking business in New York together. They are successful at what they do and enjoy working together. Fliss and Harriet are quite different from each other. Fliss is fierce, closed off and strong, while Harriet is softer, kinder and more evasive. The twins are close, they had a difficult childhood and Fliss was always looking out for Harriet. She thinks Harriet is the nice twin and Fliss is the hard, much less lovable one. However, is that really true? I don’t want to spend the night in someone else’s apartment. I like my own bed. We’d have to recruit, and that would be expensive. Could we even afford it?”

How do I get to the Hamptons?

In New York? I don’t know. I doubt he knew he’d be this close to you. It’s not as if you’ve been in touch.” She’d grown to love those precious weeks when sunlight burst through the darkness and all she trailed into the house was sand and laughter. They stayed up late and woke in the mornings feeling lighter and happier. Some days they carried their breakfast to the beach and ate it there right by the ocean. This morning’s choice, her birthday breakfast, had been a basket of ripe peaches. She’d been wiping the juice from her chin when she’d heard the wheels of her father’s car crunch on the gravel of the beach house. But Seth wasn’t so easily deflected. “Are you sure? Because you don’t look like a woman celebrating her eighteenth birthday.” Driving in North America is a pleasure. The roads are often wide, empty and scenic. Combine this with an automatic transmission car designed to cruise the roads of this continent, and you'll easily eat up the miles as you tour around on your fly-drive road trip holiday. Food

Try telling that to Seth and the rest of the Carlyle family.” And to her father. “He had a glowing future until I came along.” She poured herself another glass of water. Had he? Remembering the detail, Fliss felt color flood her cheeks. There were things she hadn’t even told her twin. Things she hadn’t told anyone. “Maybe. That’s enough talking for one day.” She felt unsettled, like a snow globe that had been shaken, leaving her previously settled feelings to swirl madly around inside. How could she still have so many feelings after so long? Weren’t they ever going to fade? It was annoying and unfair. “If Seth is going to be living here, maybe I should leave New York. That would be a solution.” The setting was just beautiful. After reading this I think even Hamptons locals would want to see it again. The way she described all the fun main couples had in beach at summer made me green with envy. Remember what Molly said. You should control the meeting. Make an appointment for one of the animals. That way you have a reason to be there and something else to talk about. If it’s awkward you can keep it professional.” Maybe instead of expanding the business, you could take more time for yourself. You’ve been working at top speed since we started this business. It’s been five years, and you’ve hardly paused to breathe.”She didn’t ever want to be delicate. Her mother was delicate. Watching her navigate her stormy marriage was like watching a single daisy struggling to stay upright in a hurricane. Fliss wanted to be hardy, like a thornbush. The sort of plant people treated with respect and care. And she was fiercely determined to earn a good living so that she would never, ever find herself trapped in the situation her mother had found herself in. Seth had rarely seen her father. Almost all his impressions of the man had come from Fliss and Harriet’s reaction to him. Haven’t met anyone who interested me.” Anyone who measured up. Anyone who made her feel the way Seth had made her feel. There were days when she wondered if what she’d felt had been real, or if her teenage brain had augmented those feelings. But he never touched you again, did he? And neither did anyone else.” Fliss grinned and rubbed her fingers along the scar hidden under her hair. “You got a reputation for being scary. So you owe me. Go and see Seth. Be me. It’s easy. Just do and say everything you’d never do or say and you’ll be convincing.”

I love the emotion this author puts into her books and how it makes you think about people, about life. I also love her secondary characters and I really can’t wait to read Harriet’s book. But they all knew it wasn’t a delivery or a neighbor. Their father drove the same way he did everything, angrily, revving the engine and sending small stones flying. Angry was his calling card. Since he’d arrived in New York he’d seen Fliss twice. The first time had been in Central Park on his first day in Manhattan. She’d been walking two dogs, an exuberant Dalmatian and a misbehaving German shepherd who had seemed determined to challenge her skills. She’d been too far in the distance for him to engineer a meeting, so he’d simply watched as she’d strode away from him, noticing the changes. It’s the bottom line that should interest you, and the bottom line is looking good.” Fliss poured coffee into two mugs, her head buzzing. With each new success, the buzz seemed to grow. “Better than our wildest dreams.” She eyed her sister. “Not that you’re the wild-dream type.” But you’ve said yourself that plenty of people who set up as dog walkers are unreliable. People are not going to trust their beloved pets with an unreliable walker. We’ve never lost a client. Never. Clients trust us.”

Save time, save money!

There was a hot ball of fire lodged in her throat, and she realized with a lurch of horror that she was going to cry.

She’d grown up protecting Harriet. First from her father, and then from anyone and everything that threatened her twin. I saw a car outside your house. Was it your father? He doesn’t usually join you in the summer, does he?” Obviously the stranger won’t be there. If the owner is in residence they’re not going to need pet sitting.” Daniel fell in love with Molly. There’s only one Molly. And they’re basically together because their dogs are best friends.” She caught her twin’s eye and shrugged. “All right, they seem happy, but they’re the exception, and it’s probably because Molly is a relationship expert. That gives her an unfair advantage over the rest of us.” What? Don’t be crazy. It was a teenage crush, that’s all. Sex on a beach that got a bit more hot and heavy than we’d planned—” Her voice tailed off as she met Harriet’s unwavering gaze.

Unsettled, she dragged her gaze to his face. His nose had a slight bump in it thanks to a football injury the summer before, and he had a scar on his chin where he’d head-butted a surfboard and needed fourteen stitches. Fliss—” His voice was husky and his hands slid to her hips, holding her still. “We shouldn’t—you’re upset—” I don’t know he’s married. I was just putting it out there, but clearly I shouldn’t have.” Ever practical, Harriet retrieved the glass and started mopping up water. I’m not worried, exactly. But I don’t understand where this is coming from. Have we had a complaint about one of our dog walkers or something?” He was also her brother’s friend. If he knew she was upset, he’d tell her brother and Daniel would once again step between her and their father. His protective instincts had put him in the firing line on more occasions than Fliss wanted to count. She didn’t mind him doing it for her twin because when Harriet was stressed her stammer got so bad she couldn’t always speak for herself, but Fliss didn’t want him to do it for her. She could fight her own battles, and right now she felt like fighting to the death.