The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club
It’s 1942, and the global conflict is being felt on the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard. The island is the perfect place to train troops for a mock amphibious invasion exercise, and there’s growing concern that German U-boats are patrolling the coastline. Sisters Cadence and Briar Smith, aged nineteen and sixteen, live on a beachside property with their Gran and their adored brother, Tom. Cadence dreams of being a writer or editor in New York City, while Briar is increasingly concerned that there is a Nazi spy living in their community, but when Tom goes off to war, the sisters will need to come together to keep the family farm afloat.
A secondary modern-day timeline, also set on Martha’s Vineyard, brings together a young woman from California, grieving the death of her mother and a reclusive painter. What connects these two women and the story of the Smith sisters during the war?
This is a story about female friendship and resilience, as well as a love letter to Martha’s Vineyard’s history and its people. There are plenty of intriguing historical details—from the publication of Armed Services Editions of books made on wafer thin paper so soldiers could find solace in books and some respite from war, to Nazi death’s head honor rings, to the growing of potatoes—as well as charming characters whose adventures, and misadventures, keep the pages turning. Martha Hall Kelly has reached into her own family history and love for Martha’s Vineyard and its storied past to create a tender portrait of a time of great upheaval and challenge.
