The New York Times bestselling historical novelist delivers her biggest, boldest, and most ambitious novel yet—a sweeping Victorian epic of lost love, lies, jealousy, and rebellion set in colonial Barbados.
Barbados, 1854: Emily Dawson has always been the poor cousin in a prosperous English merchant clan-- merely a vicar’s daughter, and a reform-minded vicar’s daughter, at that. Everyone knows that the family’s lucrative shipping business will go to her cousin, Adam, one day. But when her grandfather dies, Emily receives an unexpected inheritance: Peverills, a sugar plantation in Barbados—a plantation her grandfather never told anyone he owned.
When Emily accompanies her cousin and his new wife to Barbados, she finds Peverills a burnt-out shell, reduced to ruins in 1816, when a rising of enslaved people sent the island up in flames. Rumors swirl around the derelict plantation; people whisper of ghosts.
Why would her practical-minded grandfather leave her a property in ruins? Why are the neighboring plantation owners, the Davenants, so eager to acquire Peverills? The answer lies in the past— a tangled history of lies, greed, clandestine love, heartbreaking betrayal, and a bold bid for freedom.
A brilliant, multigenerational saga in the tradition of THE THORN BIRDS and NORTH AND SOUTH, THE SUMMER COUNTRY will beguile readers with its rendering of families, heartbreak, and the endurance of hope against all odds.
This audiobook includes an episode of the Book Club Girl Podcast, featuring an interview with Lauren Willig about The Summer Country.
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“In this evocative family saga, The Summer Country, Willig sweeps the reader away to the heartbreak of colonial Barbados, where love across the color line is forbidden and the repercussions of slavery’s cruelty echoes through the generations. Bold and beautifully told, with unexpected twists, the puzzle pieces fit together with a satisfying click.”
— Stephanie Dray, author of My Dear Hamilton
“Powerful, emotional, beautiful, and historically fascinating, The Summer Country is a simply breathtaking saga. This is the kind of book you fall into, that absorbs you for the entire time you are reading it, and that after, haunts you…long after.”
— M. J. Rose, New York Times bestselling author“Rich settings, romantic intrigue, and engaging characters will draw readers into this dramatic epic…The physical and emotional passions of the characters keep the stakes high and the pages turning, making this a powerful exploration of slavery and reformation on Barbados.”
— Publishers WeeklyBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Lauren Willig is the USA Today bestselling author of more than twenty novels of historical fiction and historical romance, including the RITA Award–winning Pink Carnation series. An alumna of Yale University, she has a graduate degree in history from Harvard and a JD from Harvard Law School.
Nicola Barber, is an Audie Award and Earphones Award-winning narrator whose voice can be heard in television and radio commercials and popular video games such as World of Warcraft. She is also an Audie finalist in the prestigious category of solo female narrationfor her work on Murphy’s Law by Rhys Bowen and Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth. She has performed on the stage in New York City and at a number of top regional theaters in the United States. Her film and television roles include The Nanny Diaries with Scarlett Johansson, and Law & Order’s 2009 season premiere. Originally from England, she currently resides in New York, a multicultural background that enables her to bring a broad range of accents and characterizations to her role as a full-time voice-over actor.