Summer in Greece

I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes at first. *Another* book about a woman fleeing to Greece to “find herself”? But *Summer in Greece* disarmed me within chapters. Wilson’s Summer isn’t here for a cute meet-cute with a taverna owner—she’s a 40-something vet with calloused hands and a diving certification, using the Aegean as a place to outrun memories of a tragedy she’s never named. The wreck dives aren’t just set pieces; they’re metaphors so heavy-handed they *work*, because Dovreni’s narration sells the weight of them. Her delivery during the underwater scenes is masterful—breathy, slow, like she’s actually holding her breath alongside Summer. That said, the middle sags. The subplot with a local historian feels tacked on, and Wilson’s habit of withholding key details about Summer’s past until the final act borders on manipulative. (We get it: she’s avoiding her grief. But when every third chapter hints at *the incident* without delivering, it starts to feel like emotional blue balls.) Still, the payoff—when it comes—lands hard, partly because Dovreni’s voice cracks just enough during the climax to make you believe in Summer’s unraveling. The production is clean, though I’d have loved more ambient sound during the diving sequences to heighten the immersion. For listeners who want their “beach reads” with teeth—and a narrator who sounds like she’s lived through a few storms herself—this is a standout.