First published 2014
The four women had made it work for fifteen years. Every August, they would find a beach house somewhere along the coast, somewhere quiet and cut off from the world. It started when their husbands were still in medical school and they were young mothers trying to keep friendships alive across state lines. They called themselves the Girls of August, and the week became the anchor of every summer. Then one of them died, and the tradition died with her. The surviving three scattered to their separate lives, letting years pass without contact. Now a wedding has brought them back together, and they decide to try again. They rent a house on a barrier island off South Carolina, miles from anyone else. But this reunion feels different. The women who gather are older, changed by loss and time. As the week unfolds, buried truths surface. The secrets they uncover about each other and themselves will reshape everything they thought they knew about their friendship.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, second-chance
Setting: South Carolina
Period: 21st-century
223 pages · Hardcover · Grand Central Publishing