It's July, and skies are blue (mostly, unless the Canadian smoke is overhead). This might be the best time of year to read about beautiful, idyllic islands where the water is clear, the slender tanned wrists of the wealthy are covered in expensive watches, and the "townies" live to serve those who are able to summer there.

Beatriz Williams sets her sun-filled novel, THE BEACH AT SUMMERLY, immediately after WWII, right at the start of the Cold War. The narrative is told concurrently in two timelines --- one in 1946, right after the conclusion of the war, and the other in 1954, years after the shocking event that changes the lives of those involved, the details of which Williams doesn't share until almost the story’s final act.

"THE BEACH AT SUMMERLY is a coming-of-age tale, a spy novel, a romance, and a book of family betrayals. But in Williams' capable hands, it all fits together. The result is a beautiful and touching story that takes us on a trip not only in time, but to a secluded, serene island."

We know that the main character, Emilia --- affectionately called Cricket by her friends --- is a conundrum. Her last name, Winthrop, is one of the oldest in New England, and her family lives on Winthrop Island, which her ancestors settled and farmed. But when the farming wasn't successful, the land was sold to the Peabodys, wealthy New Englanders who wanted to build summer homes on this picture-perfect island situated off the coast of Long Island. Cricket’s family, like most other year-round residents, now serves those who descend on the island around Memorial Day "like locusts" and stay until Labor Day.

The Winthrops have a close relationship with the Peabodys. Cricket’s father cares for their estate, and they live in their ancestral home, which has been modernized by the Peabodys. Her mother cared for the Peabody children, and the Winthrop children grew up alongside them, playing and sailing with one another every summer. We see Cricket's adoration of the eldest scion, the handsome and arrogant Armory Peabody; Cricket’s friendship with Shep, Armory’s younger brother; and how she falls under the spell of Olive Rainsford, their aunt, when Olive visits the island with her three children during the summer of 1946.

Olive is everything Cricket aspires to be. Unlike the other young adults on the island, Cricket loves to read, and she works at the local library. She had wanted to go to college, but finances and the fact that her mother had an incapacitating stroke meant she was needed at home. Olive, on the other hand, has traveled widely and lives an exciting life. She takes an interest in Cricket, who spends a lot of time that summer helping to care for the Rainsford children and talking to Olive about her pipe dreams.

When Cricket is approached about helping to find a traitor, a spy who is sending classified information to the Soviet Union, she refuses to believe it. She can't accept that someone on Winthrop Island, someone she knows, would do such a thing.

At times I wished that the novel had been structured a bit differently. The fact that most of the characters are the same in both time periods meant that it took me a while to distinguish which was which, even though the beginning of each chapter is clearly labeled with the setting and date. But the dual timeline does work well for the purpose of drawing out the mystery. We see the results of the cataclysmic event but don't really know what it is until the final reveal. We are aware of the fallout from that as Williams shares what happens when Cricket investigates the purported traitor, the fate of her loved ones as loyalties shift, and what she discovers about family secrets that have been kept from her.

THE BEACH AT SUMMERLY is a coming-of-age tale, a spy novel, a romance, and a book of family betrayals. But in Williams' capable hands, it all fits together. The result is a beautiful and touching story that takes us on a trip not only in time, but to a secluded, serene island.