The Summerhouse Books in Order

The Summerhouse series is Jude Deveraux’s love letter to second chances, with a time-bending twist. Across three books, a group of women reaches a point where life is not terrible, but it is not right either. Then a mysterious figure offers something impossible, a chance to go back and redo a few crucial weeks. The summerhouse itself starts to feel like a doorway, and like a test.

In The Summerhouse, three friends gather at a summer cottage in Maine and finally admit the truth to each other, they are unhappy in different ways. The offer they receive is simple and terrifying, go back, make different choices, and see what happens. The book balances friendship and romance, because changing the past is not just about men, it is about the lives the women built and the parts of themselves they set aside.

Return to Summerhouse takes the concept and deepens it. The new trio is dealing with different regrets, and the trip back drops them into a historical setting where the rules are stricter and the consequences come faster. It is still a romance, but it is also a story about identity, the masks people wear, and how quickly a life can pivot.

In As You Wish, the series lands back in the present, but the core question stays the same, what would you change if you had the chance, and what would you keep? Deveraux keeps the focus on emotional stakes, friendship dynamics, and the way love can look like a brand-new start or a brave return to something unfinished.

Part of the appeal is that the do-over is not a free pass. The women have to live with the ripple effects, including the ways other people react when you suddenly make different choices. Romance grows inside that pressure, because a second chance still requires courage.

It is time travel for people who do not want a science lesson.

Read the books in order if you want the fullest sense of how the summerhouse and its strange opportunities work. Each installment has its own cast and central romance, so you can also treat them like connected standalones. This page breaks down the reading order, gives you the series background, and helps you decide whether you are in the mood for heartfelt reinvention, a historical detour, or both. If you like friendship-driven romance, you will feel at home here.