Still Summer

Bestselling Mitchard offers the harrowing tale of four women lost at sea and pitted against nature and a cohort of contemporary pirates. Tracy, Holly and Olivia have known each other since high school, when they were glamorous, popular troublemakers. Twenty-five years after graduation, the three women, plus Tracy's 19-year-old daughter, Camille, set out on a "reading, sunning, gossiping" trip aboard a luxe sailboat helmed by a two-man crew. But a storm leaves the women adrift with no sail or engine and their co-captains gone overboard. With limited sailing experience, failing radio equipment and a rapidly diminishing cache of food and water, the women are vulnerable to the worst threats the Caribbean can offer?the elements, sharks and, most troublesome, pirates. This fast-paced novel borrows qualities from several genres?suspense, survival epic, coming-of-age?and mostly succeeds in melding the better aspects of each, though Mitchard has a surer hand in creating women characters than men. Mitchard's fans will appreciate this high-stakes adventure.