The First Act of Summer

From the Costa-shortlisted, beloved author of All My Mothers, Joanna Glen Is it ever too late to figure out who you were meant to be? As children, Hester and Elias were inseparable. Every year, their families would spend the summer together at their beach huts on a wild and windswept sandbank, where the two of them never left each other’s side. But childhood friendships can stretch and warp as you grow up, and in the summer of 1976, the year they turned 14, Hester did a terrible thing that would shatter both of their lives. For her 60th birthday, Hester goes back to her family’s beach hut to hide from the husband she wants to leave and the daughters she’s never fully understood. It is here that she finally faces up to what she did that fateful summer, wondering whether it’s ever too late to become the person you were meant to be. And if there’s still a chance of finding Elias again… From the Costa-shortlisted author of The Other Half of Augusta Hope, All My Mothers and Maybe, Perhaps, Possibly, this is a raw and sweeping novel about the power of a dark secret, the resilience of love and the possibility of redemption.Author: Glen, Joanna,author
Contributors: Glen, Joanna,author
Binding: hardcover
Publication Date:
Release Date:
Languages: English,Published,English,Original Language
Published/Release Date: 18 Jun 2026
Bic Classification: Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Romance, Fiction: special features
bicCode:
Format: Hardback
Publisher/Studio/Brand: HarperCollins Publishers
Author/Director/Artist: Joanna Glen
Dimension (cm): 240x159x42 mm
Package Dimension (cm): 44x240x163 mm
Item Weight (g): 700
Package Weight (g): 720