A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams
Why?
I really enjoyed Villa America and it was unexpected so when Amazon recommended that I read A Hundred Summers, I went with it.
What?
Otherwise known as amazon spiel:
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…
I love this book. I loved all of the characters. Yes, I felt like I was swept away within a film of the 1940's. I was watching Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. It was glamorous and I loved that.
I was though frustrated by Lily and her acceptance of her "lot". Her character did not appear to develop as we saw the story from the different perspectives of her life. Is there really a person who could again become friends with someone like Budgie? She is beautiful but her soul is made ugly by her over bearing insecurity.
The ending which narrated the impact of the great storm of 1938 was excellent. The move away from the Hollywoood glamour fo the rest of the book made it all the more stark. It will be 15 years this December since the Indian Ocean Tsunami devastated Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. I listened recently to a woman describing what had happened and her description of events was very similar to those of Lily. The sentiment "What the hell am I going to do if I survive?" was shared and real. This was a historical novel which introduced me to events that I previously had no knowledge of; the following evening was spent googling The Great Hurricane. Williams's words in her historical note at the end were inspiring and uplifting:
I was though frustrated by Lily and her acceptance of her "lot". Her character did not appear to develop as we saw the story from the different perspectives of her life. Is there really a person who could again become friends with someone like Budgie? She is beautiful but her soul is made ugly by her over bearing insecurity.
The ending which narrated the impact of the great storm of 1938 was excellent. The move away from the Hollywoood glamour fo the rest of the book made it all the more stark. It will be 15 years this December since the Indian Ocean Tsunami devastated Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. I listened recently to a woman describing what had happened and her description of events was very similar to those of Lily. The sentiment "What the hell am I going to do if I survive?" was shared and real. This was a historical novel which introduced me to events that I previously had no knowledge of; the following evening was spent googling The Great Hurricane. Williams's words in her historical note at the end were inspiring and uplifting:
Storms, after all, don't follow our man-made timetables.....But we will rebuild, as we always do: a little stronger each time.Oh and it turns out that Katherine Hepburn was impacted by the hurricane. I goes without saying that she played the character of Lily in this film and would have been brilliant.
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