The Summer You Were Mine

by Jill Francis

Genres: Women's Fiction

Synopsis

A second-chance romance following a woman and her first love whose careers and lives have been upended—hers by a late neurodiversity diagnosis, his by a shocking retirement from the sport he loves—as they reunite on the gorgeous Italian coast.

Ellie Beltrami and Cristiano Conte have known each other their entire lives. Both families hail from Chiavari, a small city on the Italian Riviera. Their parents are friends. Their grandparents are friends. They were friends. And for one brief moment, fourteen summers ago, they were more than that. After years apart, Ellie and Cris are headed back to Chiavari, as generations of Beltramis and Contes gather to celebrate the unlikely second marriage between her grandmother and his grandfather.

Ellie arrives in Italy mere hours after her career as the host of a multimedia sports talk show implodes thanks to a hot mic incident. With no work to distract her, she spends her free time re-examining her early years and all her perceived flaws in light of her recent autism diagnosis. Cris, a newly retired Olympic swimmer, also arrives adrift in the wake of accusations of a doping scandal. His grandfather, father, and twin brothers have all made lifelong careers outside of sports, but he is still searching for an off-ramp from athletics to something that gives him real meaning.

Reunited in a place where summer dreams come true, Cris and Ellie make a deal: an exclusive interview with Cris will fix Ellie’s career, and an appearance on her show will clear his name, letting him retire in peace. Soon they’re picking up where their teen romance left off, but if this second chance can last, they’ll need to finally confront what drove them apart all those summers ago.

Release date: July 1, 2025

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Print pages: 336