Only after she accepts the job does Taylor realize she will be working alongside her former best friend, Lucy, along with a boy named Elliot. She gets a gig at a snack bar on the beach. In an effort to create an aura of normalcy around a very abnormal summer, Robin encourages Taylor to get a summer job. Meanwhile, her father continues to work for his law firm and says he's working on a mysterious 'special project.' Nobody seems willing to talk about Robin's terminal illness, which, in Taylor's mind, makes the situation much worse. Upon arriving at the lake house, Taylor and Henry share an awkward exchange during which Taylor does not tell him about her father's illness.

However, the kiss caused a great deal of jealousy in Taylor's friend, Lucy. The last summer they were there, she and Henry had shared a kiss. Further complicating matters is the fact that Henry's family has moved into the lake house next to Taylor's. This will be the family's last visit to the lake house. Unfortunately, Robin has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given three months to live.

Their mother, Katie, is a former ballet dancer.

Taylor is seventeen and her sister, Gelsey, is twelve. It has been five years since Taylor Edwards's family has managed to visit their lake house on Lake Phoenix in the Poconos region of Pennsylvania. American author Morgan Matson’s novel, Second Chance Summer (2012), concerns a family on summer vacation struggling to cope with the fact their patriarch has only three months to live.

Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson