The Girls of August
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