One Summer a Private Island and a Mystery What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Last summer Beatriz Williams enticed her readers  with a story about a private island and a mystery from long ago.  The novel is TheSummer Wives and it tells the story of  Miranda Schuyler and that fateful summer of 1951.  Could her connections from the past come back to haunt her? What impact could it have on her future?

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“In the summer of 1951, Miranda Schuyler arrives on elite, secretive Winthrop Island.  She is  still reeling from the loss of her father in the Second World War. When her beautiful mother marries Hugh Fisher, whose summer house on Winthrop overlooks the famous lighthouse, Miranda’s catapulted into a heady new world of pedigrees and cocktails,  and status. Isobel Fisher, Miranda’s new stepsister is engaged to a wealthy Island scion.

But beneath the island’s patrician surface, there are really two clans: the summer families with their steadfast ways and quiet obsessions, and the working class of Portuguese fishermen and domestic workers who earn their living on the water and in the laundries of the summer houses. Uneasy among Isobel’s privileged friends, Miranda finds herself drawn to Joseph Vargas. In summer, Joseph helps his father in the lobster boats, but in the autumn he returns to Brown University, where he’s determined to make something of himself.

Now, in the landmark summer of 1969, Miranda returns at last, as a renowned Shakespearean actress hiding a terrible heartbreak. On its surface, the Island remains the same—determined to keep the outside world from its shores, fiercely loyal to those who belong. But the formerly powerful Fisher family is a shadow of itself, and Joseph Vargas has recently escaped the prison where he was incarcerated for the murder of Miranda’s stepfather eighteen years earlier.” (Amazon)

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed this story, and  It is definitely a page turner.   I love how we have another connection to the Schuyler clan, from other Beatriz William’s novel.   Miranda Schuyler is the closest we to a present-day member of the family.  I liked how the mystery was woven together  into the story with the split storyline between 1951 and 1969.  The setting of a private island that has a culture all its own added well to the story setting.  I did feel that the story was a little long and slowed the pace of the story towards the end.  I would also say  it is the steamiest Beatriz William’s novels that I have ever read.

You can preorder the Golden Hour here.

Rating:

4/5