The Lost Summers of Newport
With its high cliffs over the Atlantic and gorgeous, rambling 19th-century mansions, Newport, Rhode Island, is the perfect setting for a gothic mystery. Newport is where many a wealthy Gilded Age socialite spent her summers, throwing elaborate parties for the crème de la crème. The Vanderbilts’ extravagant “cottage,” The Breakers, still stands, as does Alva Vanderbilt Belmont’s Marble House. In this rarefied atmosphere, the “three W’s” have placed their most recent collaboration.
Following three different timelines and three different women, the story revolves around the mystery inside a run-down boathouse on the grounds of a shoddily built mansion called Sprague Hall. In 1899, Ellen, on the run from a vengeful gangster, finagles her way into Sprague Hall under the pretense of teaching a sheltered heiress to sing so she might win the heart of an Italian prince. Unfortunately, the heart he wins is Ellen’s. Lucky, the granddaughter of the prince, emigrates from Italy to Sprague Hall with her grandmother in 1958, only to marry the alcoholic son of a man who knows a dark secret about her family. In 2019, Andie comes to the crumbling house as a television personality with a love for historic homes, but her job is on the line if she doesn’t dig up some dirt on the family residing in Sprague Hall, not an easy task since she can’t include the family in the show and isn’t allowed near the boathouse.
Of the three timelines, Ellen’s is the most compelling, Lucky’s chapters immerse us in a world filled with the likes of John and Jackie Kennedy, and Andie’s storyline includes fascinating architectural tidbits. Overall, this page-turner is filled with enough suspense to while away a summer day at the beach, although some readers may be disappointed with the overly tidy ending.
