The Guncle

 The Guncle by Steven Rowley, 326 pages.

I was introduced to this book by Kara, whose review you can read here.  After his long-term best friend and sister-in-law dies after a long battle with illness Patrick O'Hara is devastated. The last thing he wants is to take in his niece and nephew for the summer while their father is in rehab. But, short of other choices, he does it nonetheless, taking the kids into his large, empty home in Palm Springs. They spend the summer bonding and learning to handle all of their grief, as Patrick tries to move on from both this death and the death of his partner years ago.

This is a good book, although I had a hard time getting into it. Objectively it's perfectly fine, and I'm sure many people would quite like it, but I personally found myself sort of bored. It is very sweet.