The Beach at Summerly
A Novel
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4.2 • 141 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
"There are few more skilled practitioners of the craft of summer fiction than Beatriz Williams." — The New York Times Book Review
A ravishing summer read from New York Times bestseller Beatriz Williams, sweeping readers back to a mid-century New England rich with secrets and Cold War intrigue.
June 1946. As the residents of Winthrop Island prepare for the first summer season after the sacrifice of war, a glamorous new figure moves into the guest cottage at Summerly, the idyllic seaside estate of the wealthy Peabody family. To Emilia Winthrop, daughter of Summerly’s year-round caretaker and a descendant of the island’s settlers, Olive Rainsford opens a window into a world of shining possibility. While Emilia spent the war years caring for her incapacitated mother, Olive traveled the world, married fascinating men, and involved herself in political causes. She’s also the beloved aunt of the two surviving Peabody sons, Amory and Shep, with whom Emilia has a tangled romantic history.
As the summer wears on, Emilia develops a deep rapport with Olive, who urges her to leave the island for a life of adventure, while romance blossoms with the sturdy and honorable Shep. But the heady promise of Peabody patronage is blown apart by the arrival of Sumner Fox, an FBI agent who demands Emilia’s help to capture a Soviet agent who’s transmitting vital intelligence on the West’s atomic weapon program from somewhere inside the Summerly estate.
April 1954. Eight years later, Summerly is boarded up and Emilia has rebuilt her shattered life as a professor at Wellesley College, when shocking news arrives from Washington—the traitor she helped convict is about to be swapped for an American spy imprisoned in the Soviet Union, but with a mysterious condition only Emilia can fulfill. A reluctant Emilia is summoned to CIA headquarters, where she’s forced to confront the harrowing consequences of her actions that fateful summer, and a choice that could destroy the Peabody family—and Emilia’s chance for redemption—all over again.
"Grand and gripping...shot through with suspense, romance, and glorious, beach-laden locales. I could not put it down."--Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling author of The Mitford Affair
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Williams (The Summer Wives) revisits the fictional Winthrop Island off the coast of Connecticut in this exciting story of summer love and espionage. It's 1946 and 20-year-old Emilia Winthrop, who once dreamed of leaving for college, looks after her mother after she had a stroke. Her father, meanwhile, maintains the Peabody family's beachfront estate, where Peabody sons Amory and Shep return from the war, their brother having died in battle, and their aunt Olive arrives to live in the guest house. A budding romance develops between Emilia and Shep after she agrees to babysit for the worldly Olive. Emilia also meets a man named Sumner Fox, who claims to be writing a book. Later, Sumner shocks Emilia by revealing he is an FBI agent, Olive is a Soviet spy, and he needs Emilia's help in exposing her. Williams then jumps ahead eight years. Emilia is pursuing her doctorate at Wellesley College when she's contacted by Sumner, who requests her help in a prisoner exchange involving Olive. In flashbacks, Williams reveals the details of her cooperation with Sumner and fallout with the Peabodys back in the summer of '46. Williams complements her complex narrative with a keen perspective on the island's class strata. Readers will be hooked from the first page.
