Author: Beatriz Williams
Year published: 2024
Category: Adult fiction
Pages: 368 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5
Location: (my 2024 Google Reading map): Egypt and USA (MA, CT)
Summary: New England, 2022. Three years ago, single mother Mallory Dunne received the telephone call every parent dreads—her ten-year-old son, Sam, had been airlifted from summer camp with acute poisoning from a toxic death cap mushroom, leaving him fighting for his life. Now, searching for the donor kidney that will give her son a chance for a normal life, Mallory’s forced to confront two harrowing secrets from her past: her mother’s adoption from an infamous Irish orphanage in 1952, and her own all-consuming summer romance fourteen years earlier with her childhood best friend, Monk Adams— one of the world’s most beloved singer-songwriters—a fairy tale cut short by a devastating betrayal.
Cairo, 1951. After suffering tragedy beyond comprehension in the war, Hungarian refugee Hannah Ainsworth has forged a respectable new life for herself—marriage to a wealthy British diplomat with a coveted posting in glamorous Cairo. But a fateful encounter with the enigmatic manager of a hotel bristling with spies leads to a passionate affair that will reawaken Hannah’s longing for everything she once lost. As revolution simmers in the Egyptian streets, a pregnant Hannah finds herself snared in a game of intrigue between two men . . . and an act of sacrifice that will echo down the generations.
Review: This was another fun Book of the Month selection. They really do have good books on offer. I was sure that I had read previous Beatriz Williams novels, but when I scan this blog, I don't find any reviews.
I wasn't sure how the Egypt and US stories were going to merge, but Williams did a great job of slowly bringing the two plot lines together. Alternating chapters covering the 1950s, early 2000s, and today deftly intertwine the events and people across land and time.
There are also a number of twists in the relationships within this novel: parents and children (but do all the parents know about all their children?), siblings, lovers, spouses, and friends. As each new bit is revealed it takes the reader deeper into the lives and the mystery of the story.
If you enjoy a good family drama with slow reveals I'd give this one a read.
Challenges for which this counts:
- Literary Escapes--Connecticut and Egypt
No comments
Post a Comment