We Are the Brennans

We Are the Brennans by Tracey Lange   Galley - 271 pages due to be published 8/2021

Summary from Goodreads: When twenty-nine-year-old Sunday Brennan wakes up in a Los Angeles hospital, bruised and battered after a drunk driving accident she caused, she swallows her pride and goes home to her family in New York. But it's not easy. She deserted them all—and her high school sweetheart—five years before with little explanation, and they've got questions.

Sunday is determined to rebuild her life back on the east coast, even if it does mean tiptoeing around resentful brothers and an ex-fiancé. The longer she stays, however, the more she realizes they need her just as much as she needs them. When a dangerous man from her past brings her family's pub business to the brink of financial ruin, the only way to protect them is to upend all their secrets—secrets that have damaged the family for generations and will threaten everything they know about their lives. In the aftermath, the Brennan family is forced to confront painful mistakes—and ultimately find a way forward, together

And here's what I thought: This is a smoothly paced family drama with multiple viewpoints. The characters are all realistic, so it's very easy to get drawn into this story. Sunday is the one daughter in a family of sons and she's always been the strong one, taking care of their mother and father and making sure everyone was okay. However, when we meet her, it's clear that she's not okay -- and in fact, she has left the family completely. But a bad accident brings her home to recover  . . . and pick up the pieces of the life she left behind. One of those broken pieces is her relationship with Kale, who is close friends with her brothers. At the same time Sunday is trying to make a go of things again with her family, some of her brothers are struggling with some pretty serious problems, including some very heavy debt and opening a family business. And . . . is their father hiding some dark secrets from his past in Ireland?

Overall, the theme is that the bonds of family, even including those who aren't blood relatives, can be tested, but in a family like this, are strong enough to resist the toughest situations.

This is a good book is you like family drama stories, especially about close-knit families.