Review: Husbands & Lovers by Beatriz Williams

Husbands & Lovers by Beatriz Williams

Blurb from Goodreads:

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.

My Review:
This is so good -- I didn't love the last book I read by this author but I was so intrigued by the blurb that I had to try this one.  And I couldn't put it down.  In fact, I'm still thinking about it days later, which is rare when you read 200+ books a year.  I almost am ready to re-read this one.  Something about the characters and the story and the way in which this book was written absolutely captivated me. If you like epic love stories and/or historical fiction,  give this one a read!

Husbands & Lovers comes out next week on June 25, 2024, and you can purchase HERE!  I love this book!!

I kissed Sam goodbye on a Saturday morning toward the end of June, and the call that changed my life came the following Friday afternoon.

Actually, the call came in twice. I'd stepped away from my desk to do some gardening. I remember the tomatoes were growing like crazy that summer, the roses exploding on their bushes.

Everything so abundant. Sometimes, when I'm stuck on an idea, I find it helps to walk away for a bit and do something else, something with your hands, something useful, and that knot in your mind will loosen and unwind into the bread dough or the soap suds or the stacks of folded clothes.