REVIEW: Summer on Sag Harbor by Sunny Hostin

 

I was about a chapter in when I realized that this was the second book in a series but oh well - I was able to read it as a stand alone, which was reassuring!  I picked it up because I'm very familiar with the area having spent most summers there since I was three (I'm 44 now). It's written by Sunny Hostin, a familiar face for those of you who watch ABC. 

Sag Harbor is an actual place on the East End of Long Island and within that village, there's a enclave known as SANS - Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest and Ninevah - an historically Black community. It was the part of the village where the free Native American and Black people lived in colonial times and in modern times, many Black families have purchased homes in that enclave.  It's very close knit and beautiful. In this book, Olivia inherits a home in SANS. At the same time, developers discovered SANS and are moving to "gentrify" the area (also a very current and important real life event). When Olivia gets there, she's mourning the loss of her Godfather, a man that she loved but who she also realized kept a lot of information about her own family from her (causing her to grieve that relationship as well). As the result, she's motivated to find out what happened to her family, including the death of her father as a police officer and she does it from SANS.  During her time there, she also meets a number of people and reevaluates her purpose in life.

I very much enjoyed this quick read.  I enjoyed being able to see the places that Olivia went to in my head because I knew exactly where she was. I could hear the sounds and smell the smells and see what she was seeing. I read this book in one weekend.  While it's not complex insofar as the messages it was sending regarding preservation of community, relationships and definitions of family it was effective.  Anyone could pick it up and receive the messages.  

I don't know that I would read Ms. Hostin's first book, but this one was definitely enjoyable.