The Girls of August - Hardcover

Siddons, Anne Rivers

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0446527955 ISBN 13: 9780446527958

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2014

Synopsis

Anne Rivers Siddons's New York Times bestselling novel about four friends whose lives are forever changed by the events of one summer.

For fifteen years, four "girls of August" would gather together to spend a week at the beach, until tragedy interrupts their ritual. Now they reunite for a startling week of discoveries.

The ritual began when they were in their twenties and their husbands were in medical school, and became a mainstay of every summer thereafter. Their only criteria was oceanfront and isolation, their only desire to strengthen their far-flung friendships. They called themselves the Girls of August. But when one of the Girls dies tragically, the group slowly drifts apart and their vacations together are brought to a halt.

Years later, a new marriage reunites them and they decide to come together once again on a remote barrier island off the South Carolina coast. There, far from civilization, the women uncover secrets that will change them in ways they never expected.

About this title

About the Author

The Girls of August is Anne Rivers Siddons's 19th novel. Her previous bestselling novels include Burnt Mountain, Off Season, Sweetwater Creek, Islands, Nora Nora, Low Country, Up Island, Fault Lines, Downtown, Hill Towns, Colony, Outer Banks, King's Oak, Peachtree Road, Homeplace, Fox's Earth, The House Next Door, and Heartbreak Hotel. She is also the author of a work of nonfiction, John Chancellor Makes Me Cry. She and her husband, Heyward, split their time between their home in Charleston, SC and Brooklin, ME. For more information, visit www.anneriverssiddons.net.

Reviews

Maddy, Rachel, Barbara, and Melinda met when their husbands were in medical school and started a tradition of spending a week at a beach house every August that lasted until Melinda died in an automobile accident. Years later, when Melinda’s husband remarries, they invite his new wife, a ditzy twentysomething nicknamed Baby, to join them and end up at her family’s home on the South Carolina coast. Petty jealousy is the reigning emotion, and Baby makes a point of flaunting her youth and beauty and playing up the fact that the other women are old enough to be her mother. Making matters worse, each of the women has a life-changing secret. Their anguish boils over during a storm, and all four must come together to survive. Siddons’ (Burnt Mountain, 2011) latest is a thoughtful portrait of women in crisis, the three older of them faced with an all-too-vivid reminder that they’re aging while the youngest matures, thanks to their shared experience, and all recognize that friendship is a sustaining force. Siddons’ many fans will feel right at home with this emotionally gripping, beach-themed read. --Nanette Donohue

Edition details

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0446527955
• ISBN 13: 9780446527958
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240