Our Secret Summer

Raffo arrives at a remote lake house in Big Bear seeking solitude after heartbreak, only to find the space already occupied by Dylan, her best friend's mother. What begins as an awkward cohabitation gradually shifts into something neither woman anticipates. The age gap and their tangled family ties make any attraction perilous, yet the isolation of a shared summer and the weight of their individual wounds draws them steadily closer. Harper Bliss keeps the stakes personal and the emotional terrain specific, grounding a familiar forbidden-romance premise in characters with real histories.

Abby Craden brings warmth and nuance to both women, distinguishing Raffo's raw vulnerability from Dylan's composed but fractured exterior. Her pacing honors the slow-burn tension that defines Bliss's sapphic romance style, letting emotional beats settle before desire takes over. At just under seven hours, the runtime feels well-calibrated for the story's arc, intimate enough to sustain in a single sitting or savor across long drives. Craden's performance turns the quiet, charged atmosphere of the lake house into something listeners can almost feel.