Book Review: Husbands & Lovers by Beatriz Williams

 

Pages: 384

Genre: Adult Historical Fiction

Pub. Date: June 25, 2024

Publisher: Ballantine

Source: Publisher for review

Other Books By Author: A Hundred Summers, 

The Beach at Summerly,  Our Woman in Moscow, 

The Secret Life of Violet Grant, and The Summer Wives

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

 

 

Goodreads says, "Two women—separated by decades and continents, and united by a mysterious family heirloom—reclaim family secrets and lost loves in this sweeping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Wives.

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, in a search 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—now one of the world’s most beloved singer-songwriters—a fairytale cut short by an agonizing 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, 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 into a game of intrigue between two men…and an act of sacrifice that will echo down the generations.

Timeless and bittersweet, Husbands And Lovers draws readers on an unforgettable journey of heartbreak and redemption, from the revolutionary fires of midcentury Egypt to the moneyed beaches of contemporary New England. Acclaimed author Beatriz Williams has written a poignant and beautifully voiced novel of deeply human characters entangled by morally complex issues—of privilege, class, and the female experience—inside worlds brought shimmeringly to life."

 

It's 2019 and Mallory is a single mom to her ten year old son, Sam. He is attending summer camp and she receives a life changing call that he ate a death cap mushroom, which is poisonous. He ends up very sick from this incident and is hospitalized. After he survives this horrific event, he needs a kidney transplant to life a full life and is currently on dialysis. This entire experience obviously impacts Mallory and Sam's life and Paige, Mallory's sister, is encouraging her to contact Sam's father, because maybe he is a donor match since they aren't. But Sam's dad isn't just any man. He is Monk Adams, a famous Grammy award winning musician whom she hasn't spoken to in years. He is planning to get married on Winthrop Island and it just so happens that Paige has a friend who invited them to stay on Winthrop, so off they go. What could possibly go wrong? The other timeline is told through Hannah's point of view. She lives in the 50s in Cairo, Egypt, and is in an unhappy marriage to a much older (and cruel) Englishman. She meets Lucien and her life is forever changed as he ignites a spark in her that she thought was long gone. Williams expertly weaves both stories together and in turn, readers get a memorable tale. Husbands & Lovers by Beatriz Williams is a page turner filled with historical details, a contemporary romance, a gorgeous beach setting, and more. 

I really enjoyed Mallory from the start of Husbands & Lovers. I especially appreciated the flashbacks to high school when she first met Monk and how their relationship developed during college. Mallory worked for Monk's family, helping to nanny his step siblings, and spent the summer on gorgeous Winthrop Island. These chapters really added to the beach read feel and I loved how their relationship unfolded. Also, Monk is such a memorable character and I absolutely adored him as well. Mallory and Monk seem so happy that readers are curious as to what went wrong and slowly Williams clues us in.  The flashbacks, in combination with present day details, readers slowly put the pieces together and long for Mallory and Monk to reunite in 2019.

The other timeline in Husbands & Lovers is just as compelling and told from a historical perspective in 1951 Cairo. Hannah is such a strong woman and I really was mesmerized by her past and her experiences during the war. The whole time I kept wondering how Mallory was connected to Hannah as their worlds seem so vastly different, but Williams did a great job weaving the story together. Paige, Mallory's sister, finds out their mother was adopted, so there is a subplot to understand their lineage more as well as the origin of a beautiful bracelet that their mother left behind for Mallory. As someone who loves studying their family's ancestry, this was right up my alley.

I love all of the novels that Williams writes, but Husbands & Lovers especially hit the spot as it combined a contemporary romance set on the coast, flashbacks to high school and college, as well as a historical setting that was entirely transporting. It's a winning combination for me! So, if you love all of those things in a novel as well, Husbands & Lovers should not be missed. Once I finished the novel, I was actually sad, which rarely happens these days! Let me know in the comments if you are a fan of  Williams and if you've read or plan on reading Husbands & Lovers.