BLOG TOUR: Montauk by Nicola Harrison @NicolaHAuthor @stmartinspress @suzyAPbooktours #montauk #bookreview

A simple town on the brink of a glamorous future.

A marriage drifting apart.

A life on the edge of what is and what could be…

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…

Reflection

There is so much to love about Montauk by Nicola Harrison, not the least of which is the setting. I could picture the manor and the beach so vividly, it felt like I was transported there. The slow pace highlighted the lazy, monotonous summer days that women such as Beatrice were forced to live. And before the feminist in you feels sorry for Beatrice, hers is also a life of extreme privilege. In contrast to some other character, such as Elizabeth, Beatrice’s life is one that you’ll want to say “poor little rich girl” to.

But there was also this deep undercurrent that the more society status a woman had, the more difficult it was for her to depart from society’s expectations of what a woman in her position should do in life. Seeing her break free from the constraints of Harry (who had almost no redeeming qualities) reminded me of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. There is a quiet rebellion in the way Beatrice behaves that had me cheering for her, despite her privilege.

Bea is one of those characters caught in between two worlds. Despite her privilege, there was the clear picture that she didn’t really fit in with the other society ladies. And despite her spending time with Elizabeth and some of the other staff at the Manor, she wasn’t one of them either. In a way, Bea’s status as an outsider made her an excellent observer. In fact one of my favorite parts of the novel is related to her half-in-half-out status (I won’t say what it is because of spoilers, but if you’ve read it you’ll know what I mean).

This is a perfect getaway from the world, escaping into a different woman’s life and experiencing the salacious and tantalizing secrets that lie beneath the glamour of Montauk Manor.

Thank you to Suzy Approved Book Tours and St. Martin’s Press for my copy. Opinions are my own.