A Hundred Summers
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4.2 • 24 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
As the 1938 hurricane approaches Rhode Island, another storm brews in this New York Times bestselling beach read from the author of The Golden Hour and Husbands & Lovers.
Lily Dane has returned to Seaview, Rhode Island, where her family has summered for generations. It’s an escape not only from New York’s social scene but from a heartbreak that still haunts her. Here, among the seaside community that has embraced her since childhood, she finds comfort in the familiar rituals of summer.
But this summer is different. Budgie and Nick Greenwald—Lily’s former best friend and former fiancé—have arrived, too, and Seaview’s elite are abuzz. Under Budgie’s glamorous influence, Lily is seduced into a complicated web of renewed friendship and dangerous longing.
As a cataclysmic hurricane churns north through the Atlantic, and uneasy secrets slowly reveal themselves, Lily and Nick must confront an emotional storm that will change their worlds forever...
READERS GUIDE INCLUDED
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
We love Beatriz Williams’ bright historical romances; A Hundred Summers is so beach ready it should come with free sunscreen. Heartbroken socialite Lily Dane is set to spend the summer of 1938 nursing her wounds at her family’s posh Rhode Island vacation home, but then her manipulative former BFF, Budgie, and ex-fiancé, Nick—now Mr. and Mrs. Greenwald—settle in nearby. As she does with her Schuyler Sisters series of historical romances, Williams evokes the charm of a bygone era while exploring always-in-style themes of passion, secrets, and lies.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Born into post-Depression New York society, innocent, steadfast Lily Dane and fast, jazzy Budgie Byrne are best friends. It's through Budgie that Lily meets Nicholson Greenwald, handsome, smart, charming, loyal, and, in that time and place, inconveniently half Jewish. Williams alternates between Lily and Nick's 1931 courtship and the summer of 1938, when Lily returns to Seaview, the Rhode Island beach redoubt where the Byrnes and Danes have always summered. Only now ex-fianc Nick and ex-bestie Budgie are Mr. and Mrs. Nick Greenwald. What Williams is good at is love (and, relatedly, sex), which is what powered her debut, Overseas, past what could have been a clunky time-travel setup. But the obstacles between Nick and Lily involve a lot of complicated plotting by both Williams and her high-society characters featuring secrets imperfectly kept, misplaced gallantry, blackmail, and, in the case of Lily, a tremendous ability to see things as people paint them rather than as they are. When the great New England hurricane of 1938 makes landfall near the end, it feels less like a natural disaster and more like a convenient way to get the most problematic characters out of the way so true love can prevail.
