The Summer Wives: A Novel [Large Print]

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The Summer Wives is an exquisitely rendered novel that tackles two of my favorite topics: love and money. The glorious setting and drama are enriched by Williamss signature vintage touch. Its at the top of my picks for the beach this summer.

Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Perfect Couple

New York Times bestselling author Beatriz Williams brings us the blockbuster novel of the seasonan electrifying postwar fable of love, class, power, and redemption set among the inhabitants of anisland off the New England coast . . .

In the summer of 1951, Miranda Schuyler arrives on elite, secretive Winthrop Island as a schoolgirl from the margins of high society, 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, Mirandas catapulted into a heady new world of pedigrees and cocktails, status and swimming pools. Isobel Fisher, Mirandas new stepsisterall long legs and world-weary bravado, engaged to a wealthy Island scionis eager to draw Miranda into the arcane customs of Winthrop society.

But beneath the islands 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 Isobels privileged friends, Miranda finds herself drawn to Joseph Vargas, whose father keeps the lighthouse with his mysterious wife. In summer, Joseph helps his father in the lobster boats, but in the autumn he returns to Brown University, where hes determined to make something of himself. Since childhood, Josephs enjoyed an intense, complex friendship with Isobel Fisher, and as the summer winds to its end, Mirandas caught in a catastrophe that will shatter Winthrops hard-won tranquility and banish Miranda from the island for nearly two decades.

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 samedetermined 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 Mirandas stepfather eighteen years earlier. Whats more, Miranda herself is no longer a nave teenager, and she begins a fierce, inexorable quest for justice for the man she once loved . . . even if it means uncovering every last one of the secrets that bind together the families of Winthrop Island.

Reviews

"The Summer Wives is an exquisitely rendered novel that tackles two of my favorite topics: love and money. The glorious setting and drama are enriched by Williams's signature vintage touch. It's at the top of my picks for the beach this summer." -- Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Perfect Couple

"Longtime Williams fans, readers of historical fiction and mysteries, and anyone seeking engaging plot twists will find satisfaction in these pages." -- Booklist

"With just the right touch of bitters, Williams mixes a satisfyingly tempestuous--and eminently beachworthy--[follow-up] to her beloved Schuyler Sisters series." -- Kirkus (starred review)

"[A] satisfying simmer of a read." -- USA Today

"Another hot book for summer from the prolific Williams... A romantic, multilayered tale." -- Philadelphia Inquirer

"Engrossing and gripping, you will finish this book in one sitting." -- St. Louis Post Dispatch

"The Summer Wives is a compulsively readable story that will make you swear you can smell the salt air." -- Popsugar

"This book is what the term "beach read" was made for." -- Buzzfeed

"Romance, class issues, dark secrets, and murder--it's all here in this deliciously rich novel." -- Bustle

"Williams has crafted a kaleidoscope of a novel - a mystery, a romance, and an utterly beguiling examination of the cost of secrets . . . The Summer Wives is a startling portrait of the courage it requires to make your own second chances." -- Entertainment Weekly

"The Summer Wives by Beatriz Williams will give you the full order. It takes place on an exclusive island off Long Island Sound. Think: cocktails, sailing, croquet. A woman who visits as a teen falls in love with a local...who is later accused of murdering her stepfather. Intrigue, served." -- SKIMM Reads

Author Bio

A graduate of Stanford University with an MBA from Columbia, Beatriz Williams spent several years in New York and London hiding her early attempts at fiction, first on company laptops as a communications strategy consultant, and then as an at-home producer of small persons, before her career as a writer took off. She lives with her husband and four children near the Connecticut shore.