July 2024

I smiled a lot while reading HUSBANDS & LOVERS, loving what Beatriz Williams captures in a book that is genre-bending. It’s both historical fiction and women’s fiction, and it features a great love story…or two. Beatriz once again tackles two time frames --- actually, there are three --- but for the first time, one of them is in present day…or at least in this decade (2022 New England). Mallory is a single mom whose 10-year-old son, Sam, is at camp and has eaten poisonous mushrooms, which have destroyed his kidneys. He is in weekly dialysis and needs to be watched carefully as too much water or too many salty foods can throw his body off. He desperately needs a transplant.

Mallory is estranged from Sam’s father. And neither she nor her sister are a match. The father, Monk Adams --- the boy who brought Mallory to the island in 2008 to nanny for his young siblings --- is now a major rock star. She does not want to show up with her son as the live souvenir from their relationship. And roll this into the plot: Monk is engaged and is getting married in a couple of weeks on the same island where they met.

Another way for Mallory to find a kidney match is to trace back the family lines on her mother’s side. Unbeknownst to Mallory or her sister, her mother was adopted. They find the paperwork for this, which sends them in another direction. Who was her grandmother? Where do the bloodlines go back to?

From here, we switch to Cairo in 1951. Hannah Ainsworth is married to a proper and esteemed British diplomat. His assignment to Cairo puts them in a world where things are more dangerous than they would be in England. Hannah is a Hungarian war refugee who suffered mightily during the war. She is bitten by a cobra during their stay in Cairo, and her life is saved by Lucien Beck, a charming hotel manager who sees her differently than her husband. He awakes a passion in her, one that will take her life in a different direction.

There is a bracelet that has been given to Mallory by her mother, and this cobra will lend many clues as time goes on about her mother’s life, as well as her grandmother’s. I loved how Beatriz took us in many directions, but we never were lost. There are two love stories and lots of what-ifs, and it made me want to read more about Cairo after the war.

Beatriz writes very cinematically and portrays passion so well. HUSBANDS & LOVERS has the pacing of a thriller --- there are chases, pursuits and lots of missed encounters. It’s the perfect summer beach read. I listened to part of the book on audio and enjoyed the narrators, Helen Laser and Caroline Hewitt.