by Cathryn Conroy (Dublin, Ohio): What a book! This is an intense love story—an impossible love triangle shrouded within a whodunit murder. It’s a delicious ChickLit/soap opera plot that is unputdownable.
Written by Clare Leslie Hall, this is the story of Beth Johnson, who is madly, passionately, and totally in love with two men. Two very different men. It’s the 1950s in the (fictional) rural village of Hemston, England when Beth first meets Gabriel Wolfe one hot summer day. Beth, an avid reader, excellent student, and aspiring poet, is the daughter of two teachers. Gabriel is the son of the wealthiest family in town, living on a posh estate with his older father and snobby, angry mother. But it’s love at first sight for Beth and Gabriel, and even though Beth is still in high school and Gabriel will soon be starting college at Oxford, they have a steamy and fiery sexual relationship that lasts all summer.
Beth aspires to go to Oxford herself, hoping to snare one of the few spots allocated for women. When she goes to the college to take the entrance exams and interviews, she learns a horrifying fact about Gabriel. She bids him farewell forever, heartbroken and distraught. Soon after, she takes up with Frank Johnson, a steady, safe farmer who has loved Beth from afar since he was 13. Frank is kind, compassionate, and filled with a pure love for Beth. They marry and have a wonderful life together until their little boy, Bobby, dies, leaving them inconsolable and forever changing their marriage.
Fast forward to 1968. Gabriel, who is now a famous and wealthy novelist, returns to Hemston and his family’s estate with a little boy of his own and an American wife who divorced him and moved to California. Beth tries to avoid Gabriel, but to no avail. The attraction is too strong, too vital, leaving her with an impossible choice to make: Gabriel or Frank? As dangerous secrets that had long been buried in the past rise up again, tragedy strikes. A man is killed—but is it murder or an accident?
Beth’s love stories—past and present—are interwoven with the tale of the murder trial. With colorful characters, a riveting and multilayered plot, and superb pacing, Clare Leslie Hall has written a perceptive, mesmerizing novel that simmers with tension and sex. It’s the perfect escape read.
And the ending? It is completely unexpected, incredibly powerful, and absolutely perfect.
Oh, this is a good book!
