The Secret Life of Violet Grant
Williams, author of the best-selling A Hundred Summers (2013), conjures up another substantive beach read steeped in history and familial intrigue. Separated by 50 years but joined together in spirit and ambition, Vivian Schuyler and Violet Schuyler Grant share equal parts of the narrative flow as the story leapfrogs back and forth between 1964 New York and 1914 Berlin. When Vivian accepts delivery of a musty parcel from the past, she is compelled to unlock the secrets that have shrouded the memory of her Great Aunt Violet. Though the blue-blooded Schuyler family has done its best to bury and ignore Violet’s disgraceful past—she was, after all, determined to pursue a career as a scientist!—the deeper Vivian digs, the more invested she becomes in Violet’s story. Rumor has it that Violet murdered her husband and mentor, Dr. Walter Grant, before mysteriously disappearing with her lover on the eve of WWI. As Vivian closes in on the past, she has a heart-wrenching problem of her own to resolve in the present. Readers will love wallowing in the twists and turns of this irresistibly luxurious tale. --Margaret Flanagan