My Rating: 2.5 stars
I was invited by the publisher to read and review this
book as part of the blog tour and while I don’t regret accepting the invitation,
since the story did appeal to me at the time when I read the summary, I have to admit that this way
fell way short of expectations for me. To
be honest, when I accepted this one, I actually thought it was historical
fiction – since that’s one of my favorite genres, plus I had seen some good
reviews for the book, I thought I would really be able to get into this
one. It turns out I was wrong, as this one
was not historical fiction, but rather historical romance + women’s fiction,
with heavier emphasis on the romance part and not that much on the
historical. I’m not a fan of romance novels and women’s fiction is usually a hit
and miss for me (I’ve read good and not-so-good books in both genres), so reading
this book was definitely a struggle for me.
It also didn’t help that I didn’t like the main character Beatrice all
that much, as I felt she was weak and whiny and I got increasingly annoyed with
her as the narrative wore on – unfortunately, the entire story was narrated
from her first person point of view, so that made reading this even more
frustrating.
Clocking in at 400 pages, this book was WAY.TOO.LONG! The story was super draggy and there really
wasn’t much of a plot to speak of to be honest.
But what made this a truly tedious read for me was all the “over-describing”
of things and events that were not important and at times not even relevant to
the story. In other words, there was a
lot of what I like to call “fluff” – basically space fillers that did nothing
but bog down the story. The biggest sign
that this book wasn’t for me though was the fact that, barely a quarter of the
way through the book, I had already nodded off 3 times – each time, it took a
lot of effort for me to want to pick the book back up and continue with
it. I ended up skimming much of the rest
of the book and was relieved when I finally got to the end of it. I honestly think that if I hadn’t signed up
for the blog tour, I probably would have just abandoned this one altogether.
Overall, I would say this book wasn’t necessarily bad, as
the writing was pretty decent and it did flow better than I thought it would,
plus the author did a good job when it came to describing the locale (Montauk
resort) as well as some of the historical bits – but all of that wasn’t enough
to keep me interested in the story unfortunately. Perhaps I just wasn’t the right audience for
this book, as I honestly don’t care all that much about wealthy housewives from
high-society who spend their time gossiping and being busybodies while their
husbands are away on “business” trips doing who-actually-knows-what and who, in
their loneliness, end up getting entangled in romantic affairs (yes, that’s
pretty much what the book was about). But
don’t necessarily take my word for it, as there are quite a few 4 and 5 star
reviews for this book, so it obviously has its appeal. If you’re a historical romance fan, I would
suggest giving this one a try and see if it works out for you.
Received ARC from
St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley.
******************
About the Author:
Born in England, Nicola Harrison
moved to CA where she received a BA in Literature at UCLA before moving
to NYC and earning an MFA in creative writing at Stony Brook. She is a
member of The Writers Room, has short stories published in The Southampton Review and Glimmer Train and articles in Los Angeles Magazine and Orange Coast Magazine. She was the fashion and style staff writer for Forbes, had a weekly column at Lucky Magazine and is the founder of a personal styling business, Harrison Style. Montauk is Harrison's debut novel.
About the Book:
Montauk, Long Island, 1938.
For
three months, this humble fishing village will serve as the playground
for New York City’s wealthy elite. Beatrice Bordeaux was looking forward
to a summer of reigniting the passion between her and her husband,
Harry. Instead, tasked with furthering his investment interest in
Montauk as a resort destination, she learns she’ll be spending twelve
weeks sequestered with the high society wives at The Montauk Manor—a
two-hundred room seaside hotel—while Harry pursues other interests in
the city.
College educated, but raised a
modest country girl in Pennsylvania, Bea has never felt fully
comfortable among these privileged women, whose days are devoted not to
their children but to leisure activities and charities that seemingly
benefit no one but themselves. She longs to be a mother herself, as well
as a loving wife, but after five years of marriage she remains
childless while Harry is increasingly remote and distracted. Despite
lavish parties at the Manor and the Yacht Club, Bea is lost and lonely
and befriends the manor’s laundress whose work ethic and family life
stir memories of who she once was.
As she
drifts further from the society women and their preoccupations and
closer toward Montauk’s natural beauty and community spirit, Bea finds
herself drawn to a man nothing like her husband –stoic, plain spoken and
enigmatic. Inspiring a strength and courage she had almost forgotten,
his presence forces her to face a haunting tragedy of her past and
question her future.
Desperate to embrace
moments of happiness, no matter how fleeting, she soon discovers that
such moments may be all she has, when fates conspire to tear her world
apart…
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