Set on the fictional Winthrop Island, where the who's who of New England high society spend their summers, THE SUMMER WIVES by Beatriz Williams is an atmospheric and deeply emotional novel, taking place in the years after WWII. Miranda Schuyler is fresh from high school and spending her first summer on the island because her mother is marrying the dashing heir to the Fisher fortune. Miranda and her new stepsister Isobel, spend the months after the wedding going to parties at the club, sailing, and finding reasons to go into town to see the handsome son of a lobsterman, Joseph Vargas. Smart, strong, and resourceful, Joe is the perfect first love for Miranda. He's also the only person on the island who has any control over the defiant Isobel.
In addition to Miranda's green summer in the early 1950s, we also get to see Miranda in the late 60s, returning to Winthrop Island after eighteen years away. Now a stunning movie star, Miranda has never forgotten her summer there and is haunted by events that took place one fateful night, taking Joe away from her forever, and changing her relationship with her mother and Isobel. Her return sets off a series of events that will affect them all in more ways than one.
Then there's the earlier, 1930s tale of Bianca, a Portuguese townie, innocently smitten with one of the summer families' most promising sons. Their story is one of forbidden love, and one that will make everyone question what is right and wrong...
Breezy, yet melancholy, harrowing yet heartfelt, THE SUMMER WIVES by Beatriz Williams is an impassioned look at class struggles, dark family secrets, and true love. Young Miranda is devoted to doing what she thinks is right, and when she grows up, you feel for the woman she has become. Circumstances change everything, and Miranda is right in the middle of things, but still treated as an outsider. It's an interesting position for her to be in, and one that will captivate readers. The story of Bianca and her tumultuous love affair is heartbreaking, and its repercussions will come to light years later. Williams' skillful prose flows from page to page, making this an easy read, even with a serious subject matter. Her characters come fully to life, and the plot ebbs and flows, much like the ocean where many important things take place... Recommended for historical fiction lovers.
New York Times bestselling author Beatriz Williams brings
us the blockbuster novel of the seasonโan electrifying
postwar fable of love, class, power, and redemption set
among the inhabitants of an island 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, Mirandaโs
catapulted into a heady new world of pedigrees and
cocktails, status and swimming pools. Isobel Fisher,
Mirandaโs new stepsisterโall long legs and world-weary
bravado, engaged to a wealthy Island scionโis eager to
draw Miranda into the arcane customs of Winthrop society.
But beneath the islandโs 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 Isobelโs 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 heโs determined to make something of himself. Since
childhood, Josephโs enjoyed an intense, complex
friendship with Isobel Fisher, and as the summer winds to
its end, Mirandaโs caught in a catastrophe that will
shatter Winthropโs 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 sameโdetermined 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 Mirandaโs
stepfather eighteen years earlier. Whatโs more, Miranda
herself is no longer a naรฏve 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.
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