A Certain Age by Beatriz Williams

I look forward to a new Beatriz Williams book like I looked forward to my birthday when I was a child.  (well, to be honest, even now.)   I love them!  Williams has a way of teleporting me back in time, adding the glamour of an age, and telling a story I don’t want to end.  A Certain Age (another of my beach vacation reads) is a stay up all night novel.

The Roaring Twenties, New York Society.  Mrs. Theresa Marshall has fallen in love with a younger man, and takes advantage of the open relationship she has with her husband for an affair with Captain Octavian Rofrano.  He loves her and would like to marry her, but divorce in Theresa’s social class in the 1920s just won’t happen.  Meanwhile, Theresa’s brother Ox decides to marry Sophie Fortescue, daughter of one of his investors.  In keeping with the mores of the times, Theresa has Octavian act as her brother’s cavalier and asks Sophie to marry Ox.   Page-turning intrigue follows.

Williams based A Certain Age on the Richard Strauss opera, “Der Rosenkavalier,” and reading a synopsis (if you didn’t see the opera at the Met this past April) is worthwhile.  A Certain Age has the charm and finish of a classic novel, but reads like delicious popular fiction.  I highly recommend it!