The Beach at SummerlyThe Beach at Summerly

"May 1946. As the residents of Winthrop Island open their doors for the summer season, a glamorous new figure moves into the guest cottage at Summerly, the idyllic seaside estate of the wealthy Peabody family. To Emilia Winthrop, daughter of Summerly's year-round caretaker, Olive Rainsford opens a window into a world of daring possibility. While Emilia spent the war years caring for her incapacitated mother, Olive traveled the world and fought for political causes. She's also the beloved aunt of the two surviving Peabody sons, Amory and Shep, with whom Emilia has a tangled romantic history. As the weather heats up, Olive draws Emilia into a deep rapport, while romance simmers with war hero Shep. But the heady promise of Peabody patronage is blown apart by the arrival of Sumner Fox, an FBI agent who demands Emilia's help in capturing a Soviet agent who's transmitting vital intelligence on the West's atomic weapons program from somewhere inside the Summerly estate. April 1954. Eight years later, Summerly is boarded up and Emilia has rebuilt her shattered life as a professor, when shocking news arrives from Washington -- the traitor she helped convict is about to be swapped for an American spy imprisoned in the Soviet Union, with a mysterious condition only Emilia can fulfill. A reluctant Emilia is forced to confront the harrowing consequences of her actions that fateful summer, and to make a choice that could destroy the Peabody family -- and Emilia's chance for redemption -- all over again."--Book jacket.