The Summer Girl
by Jenny Blackhurst, Laura Aikman
Narrated by Laura Aikman
Why Listen to This Audiobook?
A missing sister, a resort town with secrets, and a narrator who also co-wrote the book — the intimacy is unsettling in the best way.
- Great if you want: a propulsive summer thriller with sinister small-town secrets
- Listening experience: tense and breezy in turns — beach atmosphere undercut by dread
- Narration: Aikman narrates her own story; the investment shows throughout
- Skip if: you find the Goodreads score a more reliable signal than Audible's
About This Audiobook
When Claire's younger sister goes silent after a season working on the glamorous shores of Martha's Vineyard, the silence feels wrong in a way that defies easy explanation. The wealthy enclave of beach parties and sun-drenched privilege has a way of closing ranks, and the local community, including the police, seems content to accept a single reassuring message as proof that Holly is fine. Claire isn't convinced. As she digs deeper, a five-year-old disappearance surfaces, suggesting the island's polished surface conceals something far darker.
Laura Aikman narrates her own co-written thriller with an immediacy that prose alone rarely achieves, collapsing the distance between reader and character. Her performance grounds the escalating tension in something intimate and credible, lending Claire's mounting dread an authenticity that keeps the nearly eight-hour runtime feeling taut. The sun-and-sand setting creates an effective counterpoint to the story's darker undercurrents, and that contrast lands especially well in audio, where Aikman's controlled delivery makes every unsettling revelation hit harder.