In 1938 Lily Dane is summering in Seaview, RI, where her family has vacationed for generations. But her hopes for a quiet, uneventful holiday with her young sister, mother, and aunt are dashed with the appearance of longtime friend Budgie and her husband, Nick Greenwald. Seven years ago it was Lily who fell in love with Nick, and his marriage to Budgie broke Lily's heart. His reappearance forces her to revisit emotional terrain she'd hoped was past. As the summer builds to a cataclysmic event, Lily and Nick's relationship is told through flashbacks. Just how did their love for each other go so wrong? VERDICT While Williams's new novel (after her acclaimed debut, Overseas) starts strongly, it becomes a bit mired in melodrama in the latter third. Lily makes for an appealing protagonist and the setting and period will appeal to fans of Downton Abbey. The problem is that only Lily and Nick are fleshed out as characters. Budgie's motivations are never fully clear, and Lily's mother, who plays a key role, is never present at all. The lack of development of the supporting cast weakens the eventual exploration of just what happened. [See Prepub Alert, 1/6/13.]—Jane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI
Born into post-Depression New York society, innocent, steadfast Lily Dane and fast, jazzy Budgie Byrne are best friends. It’s through Budgie that Lily meets Nicholson Greenwald, handsome, smart, charming, loyal, and, in that time and place, inconveniently half Jewish. Williams alternates between Lily and Nick’s 1931 courtship and the summer of 1938, when Lily returns to Seaview, the Rhode Island beach redoubt where the Byrnes and Danes have always summered. Only now ex-fiancé Nick and ex-bestie Budgie are Mr. and Mrs. Nick Greenwald. What Williams is good at is love (and, relatedly, sex), which is what powered her debut, Overseas, past what could have been a clunky time-travel setup. But the obstacles between Nick and Lily involve a lot of complicated plotting—by both Williams and her high-society characters—featuring secrets imperfectly kept, misplaced gallantry, blackmail, and, in the case of Lily, a tremendous ability to see things as people paint them rather than as they are. When the great New England hurricane of 1938 makes landfall near the end, it feels less like a natural disaster and more like a convenient way to get the most problematic characters out of the way so true love can prevail. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, Janklow & Nesbit Associates. (June)
Praise for A Hundred Summers
“Blends history, romance, and social commentary into a very potent novel that is much more than a summer guilty pleasure.”—Connecticut Post
“Sparkles like the New England summer sun.”—New York Times bestselling author Karen White
“It is what every beach book should aspire to be—smart and engrossing.”—New York Times bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand
“[A] great summer read.”—People
“Will keep the reader so engrossed, multiple applications of sunscreen will be required.”—USA Today
“A wonderfully evocative atmosphere of hot and hazy days, shimmering parties, and lazy afternoons on the beach. Add in a little romance, a lost love, and a family mystery, and you’ve got the perfect way to spend an afternoon in the hot sand.”—Examiner.com
“A candidate for this year’s big beach read.”—Kirkus Reviews
“[A] fast-paced love story.”—O, The Oprah Magazine
“Summer of 1938: A scandalous love triangle and a famous hurricane converge in a New England beach community. Add in a betrayal between friends, a marriage for money, and a Yankee pitcher, and it’s a perfect storm.”—Good Housekeeping
In 1931, Budgie and Lily, students at Smith College, meet Jewish football player Nick Greenwald, from Dartmouth. Although Lily and Nick fall in love, they don’t end up together due to family pressure. Narrator Kathleen McInerney gives an emotional reading of this novel. By 1938, just before a devastating hurricane, Budgie is married to Nick and summering in Seaview, Rhode Island, where they encounter Lily. McInerney sensuously delivers this story of friendship, rivalry, and anti-Semitism. She ably makes the transitions between timeframes and fills in the background of Budgie and Lily’s relationship, which is rife with tension in the later years. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
In 1931, Budgie and Lily, students at Smith College, meet Jewish football player Nick Greenwald, from Dartmouth. Although Lily and Nick fall in love, they don’t end up together due to family pressure. Narrator Kathleen McInerney gives an emotional reading of this novel. By 1938, just before a devastating hurricane, Budgie is married to Nick and summering in Seaview, Rhode Island, where they encounter Lily. McInerney sensuously delivers this story of friendship, rivalry, and anti-Semitism. She ably makes the transitions between timeframes and fills in the background of Budgie and Lily’s relationship, which is rife with tension in the later years. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
A candidate for this year's big beach read--the period story of a derailed love affair seen through a sequence of summers spent at Seaview, R.I. It's not "Whodunit?" that drives Williams' (Overseas, 2012) latest but "What went wrong?" between Lily Dane and good-looking-but-Jewish Nick Greenwald, whose love for each other seemed unstoppable. How, seven years on, can Nick be married to Lily's BFF Budgie Byrne while Lily herself is single and accompanied by her 6-year-old sister, Kiki? The answer is teased out at length via parallel narratives set in 1931 and 1938, both voiced by Lily. In 1931, she meets dashing Nick at a football game when they are both college students. Their passion is mutual, but Lily's father disapproves. Undeterred, the couple elopes. But, in 1938, they are not together. Instead, Lily is confronted by Budgie's apparently idyllic marriage to an oddly distracted Nick. Another old college pal, Graham Pendleton, previously Budgie's lover, tries to woo Lily, but their engagement falls apart. Just when the reader's exasperation with Nick, Lily and the missing link reaches its limit, explanations for their non-togetherness are delivered. And then the weather at Seaview turns distinctly stormy. An elegant if somewhat old-fashioned delayed-gratification seaside romance with a flavor of Daphne du Maurier.
