Tag Archives: A Certain Age

Friday Book Whimsy: Cocoa Beach

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What comes first, the chicken or the egg? That was the question I asked myself as I read Cocoa Beach, the latest novel from Beatriz Williams.

As with many of the author’s novels, the story is connected in some way to characters in another of her books. It took me a bit to realize that the main character of Cocoa Beach was the sister of one of the main characters in A Certain Age, a novel that I read and liked very much, despite a slow start. As I read this latest book, I found myself wondering if the author wrote these two books in the wrong order, as Cocoa Beach is somewhat of a prequel.

The novel tells the back story of Virginia Fortescue, the sister of Sophie Fortescue of A Certain Age fame. Cocoa Beach is a mystery novel from the get-go. In fact, the very first chapter is an incriminating letter from the man who will become Virginia’s husband, setting the stage for what might have been a really interesting story.

Except that it wasn’t. Instead, it was a confusing back-and-forth story about Virginia during World War I where she works as a driver and first meets Simon and then about Virginia a few years later in the Roaring 20s when she is trying to figure out who is trying to kill her, and why. Is it her husband? Is it his brother? Most of the time I just found myself trying to figure out what year it was and who was doing what. I found it to be most confusing.

The location was new and different for the author. While many of her novels take place in New York City, Cocoa Beach took place in, well, Cocoa Beach, Florida, as well as Miami, Florida.

As Virginia tries to figure out what is going on, she keeps hearing about what is happening back home in New York with her sister Sophie and her father, accused of killing her mother (part of the plot of A Certain Age). It added to the muddle and confusion of the novel.

I must say that the author kept us wondering until the very end just who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. But Williams pulled a trick that I simply loathe: at the very end of the novel, something happens that ensures that there will be a sequel. It frankly was so badly written that I sat and stared at the book for some time, wondering if I had missed something.

I simply didn’t care for this book. I found it entirely too confusing and silly. That’s a hard pill for me to swallow from an author whom I like so much.

Thumbs down on this one.

Here is a link to the book.

 

Friday Book Whimsy: A Certain Age

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I’ve gone through a period where it seems as though many books I’ve read take place during either World War I or World War II. I don’t need to tell you that, while they are often interesting, they are also invariably and understandably sad.

Perhaps the time period in which it takes place – the 1920s — is the thing I liked best about A Certain Age, a novel by one of my favorite authors, Beatriz Williams. That time of glamour and jazz in which people acted as though Prohibition didn’t exist, and women were freed from their corsets and gaining more and more independence. And what could be better than a novel set in the Roaring Twenties in New York City?

Wealthy Mrs. Theresa Marshall, a woman approaching middle age and bored with her marriage to a rich older man who is a serial philanderer, fights her boredom by becoming involved in an affair with a considerably younger man. She has no plans to divorce her husband, as they have a kind of understanding. But her young lover Octavian, has fallen for her and would like to get married. That is, until he meets Sophie, the daughter of a newly-wealthy man who has a mysterious past. If you are an opera fan, the plot might be familiar to you as the book is loosely based on an opera by Richard Strauss called Der Rosenkavalier.

One of my favorite things about Beatriz Williams is that many of her novels are based on different members of the wealthy Schuyler family. As such, many of the stories are loosely related. In A Certain Age, Sophie’s best friend is Julie Schuyler, who we learn is the great aunt of the main characters in three of my favorite Williams novels: Tiny Schuyler of Tiny Little Thing, Pepper Schuyler of Along the Infinite Sea, and Vivian Schuyler of The Secret Life of Violet Grant, all of whom are sisters. Not necessarily pertinent to the story, but fun nevertheless.

I will admit that it took me a bit of time to get into the novel. I felt it started slowly. Furthermore, I initially found Theresa to be offputting. She appeared to be shallow and every time she called Octavian Boyo, which she did all the time, my skin crawled. As the novel progressed, however, I began to understand the complicated Mrs. Marshall, and even grew somewhat fond of her. Sophie was a wonderful character, and I loved watching her come into herself, despite her sad past.

A Certain Age is a romantic novel wrapped in a mystery, and the ending was satisfying, if somewhat predictable. I love Beatriz Williams’ writing, and A Certain Age didn’t disappoint.

Here is a link to the book.