The Summer Guest

Three extraordinary women—whose lives overlap in profound and mysterious ways—are bound together by the story of a missing manuscript: the lost novel written by a young Anton Chekhov.

Zinaida Lintvaryova is living on her family’s rural estate in the summer of 1888, when a family from Moscow rents a cottage on the grounds. Blinded by a fatal illness, young Zinaida develops a deep bond with one of their sons, a doctor and writer of modest but growing fame, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. Intelligent, curious and introspective, Zinaida keeps a diary chronicling their friendship.

In the winter of 2014, Katya Kendall’s London publishing house is floundering—as is her marriage. In her desperate state, Katya becomes convinced that publishing Zinaida’s diary will save not just her publishing house, but will bring her husband back to her as well. As translator Ana Harding reads the diary, she is captivated by the deeply felt intimacy it conveys. Even more tantalizing, she discovers clues that Chekhov, known for his plays and short stories, wrote a novel. Inspired by the thought of this lost manuscript, Ana reaches out to Katya for more information but, when she hears nothing back, decides that she will search for Chekhov’s “lost” novel herself.

So begins Ana’s journey to the Ukraine: to the Lintvaryovs' country home, into the rooms where Zinaida and Chekhov once sat and talked, and out to the river where the young men fished on the banks while the women picnicked under the cherry trees. With each clue Ana follows from the diary, a clearer picture emerges—one that reveals other much deeper mysteries and leaves Ana stunned by what she learns.

Inspired by historical events, The Summer Guest is a masterfully written novel about a friendship that transcends the limits of its time and place. It’s also a contemporary story about two compelling, women, both of whom find solace in Zinaida and Chekhov as they contemplate all that’s missing in their own lives.