Grab The View cohost Sunny Hostin’s new page-turner or a Pelham author’s novel about friendship, womanhood, and the way people bond.
By Paul Adler
Summer on the Bluffs by Sunny Hostin
From cohost of the ABC Daytime show The View comes this tale of true friendship, betrayal, love, secrets, and lust – set in New York City and picturesque Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard.
In the first of her new “Summer” trilogy, Purchase resident Sunny Hostin highlights issues such as race and identity as she intricately weaves the stories of four women: elegant Amelia “Ama” Vaux Tanner, a former Wall Street titan, and her three goddaughters: Esperanza “Perry” Soto (a guarded lawyer), Olivia Jones (a rational Wall Street analyst), and Billie Hayden (a free-spirited marine biologist).
Ama enters the girls’ lives in their preteen years, as their “fairy godmother,” inviting them every summer to the cottage she and her husband Omar Tanner built on the Bluffs. For decades, the Tanners hosted, along with the three found sisters, cultural figures, American presidents, and Wall Street giants at Chateau Laveau.
This fated summer, Ama invites each of the 20-something women to spend the season at the estate, just like they did when they were young girls. Come fall, she would bestow the home upon one of them. Each girl desperately wants to inherit the house, as to them the house is more than a dwelling: It represents a safe haven where love flourished. However, as the summer progresses, the women make new ties and sever old ones, and they discover that while they may have something of their own to hide, so does Ama. Shared secrets forever alter the understanding of history, perception of the present, and vision for the future, in this page-turner that will leave readers anticipating the next installment. – Gina Valentino
William Morrow (2021); 385 pages (hrd)
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