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 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 on those beautiful, idyllic islands. In this sun-filled novel, “The Beach at Summerly,” Beatriz Williams sets her novel 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 one 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 final act of this story.

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 the family lives on Winthrop Island, which her ancestors settled and farmed. But when the farming wasn’t successful, the land was sold to wealthy New Englanders who wanted to build summer homes on this picture-perfect island situated off the coast of Long Island. Her family now, like most who live year-round on the island, serves those wealthy families who descend on Winthrop Island around Memorial Day “like locusts” and stay until Labor Day.

Cricket’s family has a close relationship with the Peabody family. Her father cares for their estate, and the Winthrops 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 the wealthy Peabody children, together every summer, playing and sailing. We see Cricket’s adoration of the eldest scion, Armory Peabody, handsome and arrogant. We see her friendship with Shep, the younger brother. And we see how she falls under the spell of Olive Rainsford, their aunt, when she 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, and Cricket spends a lot of time that summer helping 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 believe that someone on Winthrop Island, someone she knows, would do such a thing.

At times I wished that the story had not been told in two timelines because the fact that most of the characters were the same in both timelines 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 the event was until the final reveal. We know the fallout from that as Williams shares what happens when Cricket investigates the purported traitor, what happens with Cricket’s family as loyalties shift, and what she discovers about family secrets that have been kept from her.

There’s a lot happening in this novel: a coming of age story, a spy story, a romance, and a story of family betrayals. But in Williams’ capable hands, it all fits together, and the result is a beautiful and touching story that takes us on a trip not only in time, but to a secluded, serene island.

This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.