The Summer Wives

“The Summer Wives is an exquisitely rendered novel that tackles two of my favorite topics: love and money. The glorious setting and drama are enriched by Williams’s signature vintage touch. It’s at the top of my picks for the beach this summer.” —Elin Hilderbrand,author of The Perfect Couple New York Times bestselling author Beatriz Williams brings us the blockbuster novel of the season—an electrifying postwar fable of loveclasspowerand redemption set among the inhabitants of an island off the New England coast . . . In the summer of 1951Miranda Schuyler arrives on elitesecretive Winthrop Island as a schoolgirl from the margins of high societystill reeling from the loss of her father in the Second World War. When her beautiful mother marries Hugh Fisherwhose summer house on Winthrop overlooks the famous lighthouseMiranda’s catapulted into a heady new world of pedigrees and cocktailsstatus and swimming pools. Isobel FisherMiranda’s new stepsister—all long legs and world-weary bravadoengaged to a wealthy Island scion—is eager to draw Miranda into the arcane customs of Winthrop society. But beneath the island’s patrician surfacethere are really two clans: the summer families with their steadfast ways and quiet obsessionsand 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 Isobel’s privileged friendsMiranda finds herself drawn to Joseph Vargaswhose father keeps the lighthouse with his mysterious wife. In summerJoseph helps his father in the lobster boatsbut in the autumn he returns to Brown Universitywhere he’s determined to make something of himself. Since childhoodJoseph’s enjoyed an intensecomplex friendship with Isobel Fisherand as the summer winds to its endMiranda’s caught in a catastrophe that will shatter Winthrop’s hard-won tranquility and banish Miranda from the island for nearly two decades. Nowin the landmark summer of 1969Miranda returns at lastas a renowned Shakespearean actress hiding a terrible heartbreak. On its surfacethe Island remains the same—determined to keep the outside world from its shoresfiercely loyal to those who belong. But the formerly powerful Fisher family is a shadow of itselfand Joseph Vargas has recently escaped the prison where he was incarcerated for the murder of Miranda’s stepfather eighteen years earlier. What’s moreMiranda herself is no longer a naïve teenagerand she begins a fierceinexorable 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.