These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean

For some reason I was thinking this was more high brow literature than it ended up being, and so was maybe more disappointed than I would have been if I had been slightly better informed. The author is a romance writer, and for me, this book is deeply rooted in that tradition--you can see what is coming down the proverbial pike from a mile away. Although it turns out this was on the New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2025, so maybe it is just me. The senior Storm has died and left his prodigious estate in limbo. On the one hand everyone counted on getting their share of a sizable inheritance pie and on the other, what were they thinking? That their husband and father would not try to manipulate and control them beyond the grave? Alice is the black sheep of the family and our window into the family. She’s an outsider who used to be an insider, as she was exiled from the family by her father five years ago for rebelling against her father over a sexual harassment situation, so we are on her side in this — she is the only person who had ever stood up to him. There is so much hurt and pain amongst all the Storm siblings, as they have lived in the shadow of their larger-than-life father, and all of them, except Alice, have always done his bidding. The twists, turns, and layers of Storm dysfunctional family relationship dynamics are central to the story--if that sort of saga appeals to you, this would be good reading.