The Golden Hour

May 6, 2019
The stories of two remarkable women a generation apart are cleverly intertwined in Williams’s sweeping family saga. In 1941, Lulu Randolph, a 25-year-old widowed American journalist, is in Nassau, Bahamas, to write society articles about the duke and duchess of Windsor, Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. The duke—as governor of this island paradise with a dark side—and the duchess are portrayed as sometimes helping, but often contributing to, its problems of social inequality, racial tension, and corruption; they could also be complicit in the murder of gold mine owner Harry Oakes, and there are whispers of their Nazi sympathies. As Lulu’s royal access leads her deeper into Nassau’s shady political world and into a murky letter-passing operation with the duke and duchess, she falls in love with Benedict Thorpe, an English botanist with a mysterious background, who is captured by the Nazis in Europe. In the second story line, set in 1900, young German baroness Elfriede von Kleist suffers from postpartum depression; her sister-in-law banishes her to a Swiss clinic. She falls in love with an English patient, Wilfred Thorpe; their relationship takes many twists and turns as a result of Wilfred’s military career, Elfriede’s husband’s betrayal, and two tragic deaths. Past and present come together when a complicated family history becomes known to all. Williams (The Summer Wives) illuminates the story with exotic locales and bygone ambience, and seduces with the irresistible Windsors. Readers will appreciate the wartime espionage that keeps the suspense high.

December 19, 2005
A former master-of-the-universe must test his mettle against local yokels in this deft first-person literary comedy from Weinstock (As Long As She Needs Me
). At 46, William "Bull" Schoenberg surrenders his seven-figure salary and Park Avenue trappings along with his adulterous wife, Pippa, after "having disappointed her for 19 years of marriage." With her parting shot, "You're no man," replaying in his gin-soaked brain, Bull plops down cash for a shiny BMW and blows up the Hudson to the sanctuary of their country house (a turreted castle, natch). But Bull finds no comfort there: signs of Pippa's lover mark the house, and Bull's domestic helplessness compounds his midlife misery. When Bull accidentally sets fire to the place with a fifth of gin, the Harristown Volunteer Fire Company arrives to douse the flames. Though the firefighters' contempt for Bull is absolute, the town is strapped for volunteers (and cash), and the firemen let Bull know that they could use a big guy like him—once he passes a training course. Bull, eager to find the real man behind the guy who earned his nickname sitting at a computer, agrees. Besides, what else has he to do, other than figure out which of the locals (a firefighter, perhaps?) was bedding his wife? Weinstock's latest is smart, refreshing and great schadenfreude fun.

January 1, 2006
In this charming, seductive fish-out-of--water tale, high-flying financial consultant Bill Schoenberg up and quits his lucrative job, chucks his 19-year marriage (he suspects his wife is having an affair), and moves out of his luxurious penthouse apartment, forsaking Manhattan for his country house in upstate New York. Power-chugging bottles of gin while stumbling through the maze of overpriced antiques crammed into every inch of his new abode, Bill appears to be somewhat at loose ends. Then he builds a fire in his quaint wood-burning stove and sets the house ablaze. That's how he meets Harristown's brigade of volunteer firemen, including the authoritative, no-nonsense chief (who runs an antique store) and hapless, stalwart Sully (local car mechanic), who talk him into joining up and trading in his gin bottle for a fire hose. Despite their wildly disparate backgrounds, Bill blends into the unit, finding the men and the work to be a lifesaver. Although the impetus for Bill's drastic about-face (ominously alluded to throughout) is something of a letdown, the story of his redemption is both moving and funny.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)