ISLAND GIRLS - Nancy Thayer
Ballantine
ISBN-13: 978-0-345-52873-5
July 2013
Contemporary Romance

Nantucket Island, Massachusetts - Present Day

Rory Randall was a charming philanderer.  He divorced his first wife, Nora, to marry Cyndi; then divorced Cyndi to marry Justine.  Rory and Nora had one daughter, Arden; Meg was born to his marriage with Cyndi; and he adopted Justine's daughter, Jenny.  Every year Rory stayed at a huge, beautiful summer house on Nantucket Island, which he was finally able to buy when his business became a success, and he lived for a short time with Cyndi and Meg; and finally, Justine and Jenny.  His first wife and daughter, Nora and Arden, always lived in Boston.  Arden spent her summers in the Lilly Street house until one fateful summer, when third wife, Justine, accused Arden of stealing her emerald necklace.  Suddenly, Arden and Meg found themselves banished from the house on Lilly Street forever.

Today, Arden Randall is the host of a popular television show in Boston called Simplify This .  She's made a name for herself organizing people's lives, helping them live without clutter.  Arden is driven and career oriented with no children or husband in her life or in her plans for her future.  In contrast, her half-sister Meg is a sedate college professor who teaches at Sudbury Community College in Boston.  Where Arden is tall and thin, Meg is shorter and voluptuous, but she hides her figure behind loose clothing and keeps her long hair tight in a bun as she thinks befits her professorship.  Meg doesn't have anyone special in her life, but she's been keeping company with another professor, Liam, a man five years her junior.  Before The Exile , as Arden and Meg still call their banishment from their father's house, they lived with their step-sister, Jenny for a time.  But once Jenny's mother, Justine, succeeded in getting Arden and Meg out of the house, Jenny was the daughter who grew up knowing their father, and she was not even Rory's child!  Now, a successful computer technician, Jenny works from home.

The sister's lives change in an instant when Rory dies of a heart attack.  The reading of his will brings his last demand:  in order to inherit the Lilly Street house, Arden, Meg and Jenny must spend the summer living together on Nantucket.  At the end of August, the house will be sold and they are to split the proceeds.  A large house on the island will fetch at least a couple million dollars, money none of the sisters can afford to give up.  So, reluctantly, Arden and Meg join Jenny on the island, and after a few squabbles over bedrooms and kitchen duty, they all settle down for the summer.

Three bickering sisters become ISLAND GIRLS as they delve into memories of that last fateful summer when they were actually friends and having fun on the beach.  As the days pass and they make compromises, they grow to understand and respect each other. Arden is on a leave of absence from her television show, but she is battling her producer over adding a younger woman as her co-host.  So, she still plans to keep working, but to do that she needs to meet people on the island.  And Jenny knows these people, especially the influential Palmer White, who is none other than the owner of Channel Six, and Arden's employer.  Meanwhile, Meg has already made plans to take the summer off from teaching to write a book.  Jenny is the only one of them who is looking forward to finally getting to know her step-sisters.

ISLAND GIRLS is a lush novel set on the wealthy island of Nantucket, and looks into the lives of three ordinary women and their mothers.  We get glimpses of their lives as the children of the same wayward father and three different mothers.  Arden and Meg resent Jenny for The Exile, even though it was Justine, not Jenny, who sent them away.  That one incident, however, colored each of their lives in different ways and is the catalyst that brings them together.  Full of emotion and just plain fun, this novel is delightful!  With a twist here and there, we have surprises all the way to the end of the story, which leaves a satisfying conclusion.  ISLAND GIRLS is one special book!

Diana Risso