The Beach at Summerly, Beatriz Williams, author; Saskia Maarleveld, narrator
The year is 1954. Emilia Winthrop was raised on Winthrop Island, once named for her family. Currently, she is teaching at Wellesley College. When she receives a telephone call from her Aunt Benedita, filling her in on news of her hometown, she is flummoxed. Why is a house on Winthrop Island, that has been unused for years, being renovated? Summerly is the estate where Emilia grew up, and it has gone to disrepair. Emilia’s parents worked as caretakers for the Peabody family, who still own Summerly. She spent many happy hours there, cavorting with the Peabody brothers, regardless of the fact that she was the daughter of their employed caretakers. They were prime catches for a girl, but she was not in their class. She left the island almost 8 years ago. Why should she care about what was happening there now? She is rushing to get to her class on time, and is annoyed with her aunt for disturbing her, bringing up old and painful memories.
The book goes back and forth between 1946 and 1954. In 1946, shortly after the end of the war, the Peabody’s are hosting their first party in years. Both the Winthrop and the Peabody families had lost a son in the theater of World War II. Emilia’s mother had a stroke as a consequence. She was never the same and Emilia gave up her dreams to leave the island and stayed to help her father care for her.
When Emilia meets Olive Rainsford, the aunt of the Peabody boys, her life is changed. She soon works for Olive as a kind of nanny and helpmate. Olive takes a very deep interest in her and encourages her to break away from the island and make the most of herself and her life. Who is Olive Rainsford, and why does she even care about Emilia? Soon, Emilia is drawn into a world of romance, intrigue and espionage. The story moves quickly and is filled with romance and thrills that keep on coming as fact and fiction are introduced and threaded together. The real events of war, the Iron Curtain, Communism the Dulles brothers, the FBI and the CIA merge with the fictional themes in the novel.
This is truly a book to take on vacation. It captures the reader from the first page as it mixes fact and fiction together, seamlessly. Although written about a time that occurred decades ago, it covers relevant issues of today. Women’s rights, survivor guilt, PTSD, issues of class difference, war and peace, weapons of mass destruction, fidelity, illness, and life and death decisions are confronted.
The author has illustrated how difficult choices sometimes produce undesired results, but making the right choice is necessary, regardless of the outcome. There is simply good and bad in all people, and sometimes there are unintended consequences when the real identity of a person is discovered, and secrets are revealed. Often, people draw the wrong conclusions from events around them. Then they, make impulsive decisions that can alter the rest of their lives, positively and negatively. With maturity comes wisdom, with time, sometimes things will work out.
As the author knits the different tangents of the story together, the reader will occasionally have to suspend disbelief. The scenes sometimes seem implausible. The sex scenes seem too numerous, making the book more chick lit than literature. Still, the story is very entertaining, exciting and uplifting, in the end. This is a great book to take on a vacation. The ending is hopeful and a bit like a fairytale. Although I did not care for the main character’s constant excuses for her behavior, without her sometimes irrational and foolish behavior, there would be no novel.