This is our Book Club selection for September. This month has really gone by fast, and it wasn’t until three days ago that I realized this book was sitting on the shelf waiting to be read and now I had less than a week to read this 400-page book.

This book has two intertwined stories in it; the story of Margaret Ives and the story of Alice Scott. I found that I really didn’t care anything about the story of Margaret Ives (and I literally skipped probably the last quarter of her story) but I loved the story of Alice and Hayden. What was so completely refreshing about their burgeoning love story is that they didn’t fall right into bed together but they let their passion grow slowly. And I felt Alice’s passion and heartbreak.
There is one paragraph at the end of the book that I loved:

I found myself thinking that maybe every bit of heartbreak in life can be rearrangd and used for someting beautiful. That it doesn’t really matter whether I chose this path or I was born onto it, so long as I stop and appreciate the path itself.”

If I could rate Alice’s of the story, I’d give it ★★★★★, but since I can’t, I have to give the whole book ★★★ 3/4
From Amazon:

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: to write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years—or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the twentieth century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication.

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad . . . depending on who’s telling it.