Summer's Never Over by Darby Bozeman
Publisher: Berkley Publishing
Publication Date: June 9, 2026
Format: Paperback - 368 pages
Audiobook - 11 Hours 2 Minutes
Kindle - 366 pages
Nook - 368 pages
ISBN (Paperback): 978-0593953532
ASIN (Audiobook): B0FSN5GGML
ASIN (Kindle): 978-0593953549
BNID (Nook): 978-0593953549
Genre: Thriller
Buy The Book:
Disclaimer: I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. I also purchased a hardcover copy of the book from my monthly Book Of The Month (BOTM) subscription.
Book Description:
In this addictive dual-timeline debut novel, a woman confronts her past at the remote Southern summer camp where the tragic death of her fellow counselor may not have been an accident after all.
Five years ago, Greer left her family’s summer camp in the mountains of Georgia and vowed she’d never return. An idyllic season had turned into a nightmare after a mysterious Phantom began stalking the camp—and ended with Greer’s friend and fellow counselor dead. Losing Steph shattered everything, and Greer’s been fleeing from the grief ever since.
But then Greer’s mother dies, and Greer finds herself back at Dread’s Cove, surrounded by the people she was closest to that intense summer. Two ex-boyfriends—one a childhood sweetheart, the other the guy she's never gotten over—and old friends. Including Margo, Steph's best friend.
Greer and Margo didn’t leave things on the best of terms. But now, Margo needs her. Margo never believed that Steph’s death in that horrific fire was an accident—and she’s on the trail of an explosive secret Steph took to her grave.
Greer has to make a keep the Cove’s secrets and her own or finally face the truth about that summer.
My Book Review:
In Summer's Never Over, author Darby Bozeman weaves a riveting thriller that easily draws the reader into a dark storyline that follows a five-year-old tragedy at a Georgia summer camp that still haunts the owner's daughter, Greer Olsen.
Five years ago, a wildfire destroyed Dread's Cove summer camp in Georgia. The family-owned summer camp was devastating for the Olsen family: owner Anita and daughter Greer. For Greer, the tragedy was even more traumatic because of the death of her new friend and co-camp counselor, Stephanie Bennett. After the traumatic summer, Greer left the camp and moved to Atlanta, but she is still haunted by what happened at the summer camp. Now five years later, Greer gets the call that her mom has passed away after a sudden cardiac arrest during a nighttime walk around the lake. Anita had rebuilt the summer camp and was going to hold a welcome back event prior to the reopening of Dread's Cove. Greer returns to Dread's Cove to confront her past and figure out what to do with the summer camp, but long-buried secrets and mysteries from the past resurfaces along with the legend of The Phantom that once again terrorizes the summer camp, and Greer is determined to get to the truth this summer.
Summer's Never Over is a complex and multi-layered tale that is told in the first-person narrative by Greer Olsen. The reader is taken along for the ride as Greer's story unfolds in alternating past/present timelines that revisits the five-year-old tragedy that devastated her family summer camp and the tragic death of her friend Stephanie Bennett. As Greer's story unfolds, there is a dark intensity of long-buried secrets and mysteries surrounding the summer camp and the legend of The Phantom that resurfaces, and Greer is determined to get the truth. This is a slow-building thriller that has so many riveting twists and turns that kept me guessing if The Phantom that has lurked in the woods of the summer camp for all these years was just a legendary ghost story or an actual person, and the uncovering of the long-buried secrets and mysteries surrounding the summer camp kept me in suspense until the very shocking conclusion.
Summer's Never Over is an intense thriller that will keep you in suspense until the shocking conclusion!
Rating: 4 Stars
About The Author
Darby Bozeman is a Portland, Oregon native who moved to Georgia for grad school a decade ago and thinks she can now officially call herself Southern. When she’s not reading or writing, she loves acting in community theater, discussing pop culture, and going out to buy coffee even when she could very much make it at home. She lives in Knoxville with her husband, Bryan, and their cat, Claude. Summer's Never Over is her debut novel.
