A Hundred Summers
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The New York Times bestselling novel.
Rhode Island, 1938. A sweltering summer of secrets, passion and betrayal…
‘I wish I could remember more. I wish I had taken down every detail, because I didn’t see him again until the summer of 1938; the summer the hurricane came and washed the world away…’
Lily Dane has returned to the exclusive enclave of Seaview, Rhode Island, hoping for an escape from the city and from her heartbreak. What she gets instead is the pain of facing newlyweds Budgie and Nick Greenwald – her former best friend and former fiancé.
During lazy days and gin-soaked nights, Lily is drawn back under Budgie’s glamorous and enticing influence, and the truth behind Budgie and Nick’s betrayal of Lily begins to emerge. And as the spectre of war in Europe looms, a storm threatens to destroy everything…
Reviews
‘A world filled with elegance, charm, and bygone manners … No-one does it better than Beatriz' Jane Green
‘Summer of 1938: A scandalous love triangle and a famous hurricane converge… a perfect storm.’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
‘Definitely worth squeezing into your hand luggage’ RED
‘A fantastic summer read’ HELLO
‘Delightful and rewarding from an author to watch’ WE LOVE THIS BOOK
‘Williams' historical masterpiece is an all-encompassing, period-perfect read.’ RT Book Reviews (Top Pick!)
‘[A] fast-paced love story…the scorching sun illuminates a friend’s betrayal and reignites a romance’ O, The Oprah Magazine
‘A candidate for this year's best beach read – the period story of a derailed love affair seen through a sequence of summers’ Kirkus Book Reviews
About the author
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.
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.
