The Golden Hour

By Nicholas Weinstock

After forty–six years in upscale Manhattan, after two roaring decades as an investment banker and after nineteen years of marriage, Bill Schoenberg lost it all and ran for the hills. He made a mistake, regrettable and unspeakable; and having fled to his neglected country house in rural New York State to gather his wits, he found a chance to reacquire his self–respect as well – and possibly even redemption.

To a man for whom flames existed solely in the kitchens of four–star restaurants, and who had volunteered for nothing in his life, the Harristown Volunteer Fire Company represented an unlikely pursuit – until a fire in his house convinced him otherwise. As Bill struggled to trade his French cuff shirts for flannel, to learn to dress in the back of a moving fire truck and to knock down forest fires, he was also forced to navigate the darker recesses of his mind and dying marriage. His wife may have been having an affair with one of his colorful country neighbors; an angry intruder seemed to be preying on his property; and his own unmentionable secret came closer to the surface the longer he stayed in Harristown.

Intelligent and entertaining, funny and frightening, THE GOLDEN HOUR is a unique novel of manhood, neighborhood, and saving the day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9780062048202

Nicholas Weinstock

Nicholas Weinstock is the author of The Secret Love of Sons and the novel As Long As She Needs Me. His writing has been featured on National Public Radio and in publications including the New York Times Magazine, The Nation, Vogue, Nerve, Ladies' Home Journal, and Poets & Writers. He is a member of the council of the Authors Guild, and he works as vice president of comedy development for 20th Century Fox Television and lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the writer Amanda Beesley, and their three children.

Book preview

AS ONE LEAVES MANHATTAN

and drives up the Hudson River into the rural and unimaginable territory to the north, the tensions of the city fade gently away. In their place loom the terrors of the country. I clung to the steering wheel, sticking close to the blue-brown river. I voluntarily crossed the George Washington Bridge for the first time in my life. Here the arguments of portable radios, the car-alarm anthems and the other clashing noises of my home were distilled to the hum of traffic. Then, somewhere along the Parkway, even that went away. I steered up the Thruway with only the occasional growl and blinker of an automotive rival and with a sense of dread and freedom like nothing I’d ever felt. Hills bulked on all sides, barnacled with yellows and reds, like surfacing leviathans of the deep. Roadside telephone wires cut up and abruptly down and up again: dwindling connections to civilization that could be severed with the fall of a tree.

Two and a half hours out, the land grew howlingly empty. The occasional electric appeal of fast-food signs was replaced by the lower-wattage colors of dying leaves on trees. In Ulster County the river disappeared. In Delaware County it coldly returned. Passing the Catskill Mountains, according to my fucking unfoldable map, the car filled with the scent of pine and with the sharp, green knowledge that this was only the beginning: that I had lived my whole life on a slim island off the southern tip of something bigger, this clean slate, this triangle of woodland stretching from Coney Island to Canada. Here the sleekest of New Yorkers find themselves fish out of water, wide-eyed and gasping in the state of New York.

I was in sorry shape to begin with, given recent events, and wasn’t likely to be soothed by a rare and clumsy turn behind the wheel of an automobile. Pippa had always been the one to drive us to the country house. Now, for all intents and purposes, there was no Pippa. Which left me with the challenge of shifting and pedaling and handling the unruly power of a new BMW with its steering wheel jammed in my gut, with the sales sticker still on the window, with my rearview mirror useless thanks to the wall of boxes in the backseat. In the passenger seat, miles away, rolled my survival ration of top-shelf gin. Having lived for forty-six years with the clattering efficiency of the New York City subway system—and for the last decade with the slower nosing and unloading of its limousines—I was at a loss in any vehicle requiring my guidance. I did own a driver’s license, albeit one that had expired in 1986. The dealer hadn’t seemed too persnickety on that point, hardly glancing at my boyish photo as he leaned over it to count my cash.

The signs beside the highway were barely legible through the leafy spill of Mother Nature. Towns seemed to be arranged in descending order of appeal, from the lordly Arden and Oxford and New Windsor past increasingly ominous village names ending in hook and kill. Pippa got the apartment, I thought as I accidentally flipped on the wipers and pawed at buttons in an attempt to turn them off. Which left me the rest of the world.

Or at least a house perched on the edge of it. Who’d have thought I would ever elect to live in this gilded shack in the boondocks? The country, as I’d explained to Pippa more than once, was not my forté. I did not do mosquitoes. I had no primal longing to hike through poison sumac. When it came to greenery, I preferred mine creamed and served beside an $80 steak at Peter Luger. The clever residents of New York City floss their teeth, they wax their fruit, they pay good money for razor-scraped tablecloths and the pressing of dress shirts on command. Such commands, in a place like Harristown, fell upon the deaf ears of the cornfields. Men like me drew the snickers of trees.

But what choice did I have? She had ordered me out. She had staked her claim to our apartment, and having disappointed her for nineteen years of marriage, I was not prepared to fight her as well. Which left me few options; fewer and fewer as the days went by. I could have stayed in a downtown hotel. I could have stayed at my job. A more reasonable man might have absorbed the grim twist of fate and moved on, kept at it, kept the trains running on time. I, however, had run away to the country house. This was my great escape, my mad dash to the last place anyone would look for me. The only place I could go. I had tried to get in touch with friends, but I seemed to have lost custody of them, judging by their uniform failure to return my phone calls. Not a man, she must have called to inform them soon after she’d shrieked the words at me. You’re no man.

I left the highway for a road, the road for a winding lane. The buildings scattered and soon shrank to the size of houses, finally turned into barns. There were no people, it seemed: no pedestrians, no neighborhoods. The inhabitants of this outback sheltered alone. I tried two right turns and recognized nothing before I found the steep and appleless dirt path marked Apple Hill Road. I drove up the incline, spitting rocks, past the weathered shacks of the locals. The long-fingered woods closed in. The smell, now, was of soil, of mold, of rabid farm animals, and I found myself suddenly nervous at the prospect of having to get out of the car. Then the glossy white-and-blue sign for Ridgepoint Circle appeared on my right. My wheels hit the tarmac and sighed with relief. The branches fell away from our landscaped clearing of sky. After three hours in a motor vehicle, I was almost happy to see the trim lawns of emerald green rise, like a butler, in welcome.

Our house—my house—was second in the neat row of them, distinguished by a front-yard cluster of yellow trees and boasting the same royal blue mailbox as all the others. I rolled past the redbricked Georgian monstrosity owned, it was said, by an Albany television-station owner and his stepfamily. I turned into the driveway before my other neighbor’s tall Swiss chalet of blond wood and glass. Across the street was the gigantic stucco fortress of an insurance tycoon from Hartford, its pale bulge that of a papier-mâché school project gone awry. From a distance these luxury homes would appear to have been air-dropped into thisdirt-poor county, plunked down in a hasty row like Red Cross care packages for the desperately wealthy. Mine was arguably the least garish, with its small yard and generous use of locally harvested cobblestones. Still, the twin turrets and stained-glass windows were enough to have led me, that first day with the real estate agent, to question aloud the lack of a moat and drawbridge, to holler upstairs for Sir Galahad—at which point Pippa lanced me with one of her stares. She strode to the foot of the staircase and declared the place sold. It had everything, she informed us. Peace and quiet. Sauna and Jacuzzi. She would take it, she announced to the awestruck Realtor and me.

Who, of the three of us, could have predicted that ten months later I’d take it back?

I turned off the ignition. I spent a minute imagining what my former associates would be doing in the office right now. Changing the world. Redistributing global wealth. Milling at the windows with their shoes off, tapping putts across their carpets, yelling at the speakerphone and fuming at the drop in the Nasdaq and biding their time and their reputations until they could go home and fail to relax. I wouldn’t miss the life. I didn’t miss it already. Nobody left the life. Only I had left, only me. I suppose it took something like this. There would be times, and this was one of them, that the whole barbaric incident with Pippa would seem a twisted excuse to leave my job. This, after all, was a circumstance beyond my control—all right, maybe within my control, maybe if I were stronger, but awful enough to knock anyone for a loop and change his life.

I took a last deep breath. I shouldered open the car door. I exited the vehicle to the thin smell of wood smoke and the spooky silence of a country afternoon. The boom of the door behind me. The stretching of legs. The trees of Ridgepoint Circle nodded in uneasy greeting. The orange-speckled hills above them rolled over and went back to sleep. The grass was crowded with pine cones and the gaudy leaf heaps of fall. Nothing a good raking (hell, I could learn to rake) wouldn’t fix. My cell phone rang amid the boxes on the backseat, where I’d thrown it the fourth or fifth time it had rung before. None of my neighbors appeared to have come to the country for the weekend. It occurred to me then that it wasn’t the weekend. The phone gave up and I closed my eyes, nudged by the breeze. Hair riffled on my head and unshaved face. There was quiet here: not the cumulous, tangible quiet that hangs between events, but a vapid soundlessness, a permanent emptiness, that made me feel as if the top of my head had been removed.

I unloaded my boxes in staggering laps up and down the stone front steps. The house was dumpier than I remembered it. There was a rakish tilt to the Viking stove, clouds on the satinwood dining room table, incriminating grit on my index finger when I knelt, with heavy effort, to inspect the dulled parquet floors. There were enough brown rings in the drained hot tub on the third floor to count its age. The stained-glass windows were peppered with bird shit, and there was a smell emanating from the olive green divan in the piano room that suggested something with fur had burrowed in and died. Worse, and gratuitous, were the two used mugs in the den, left out for all to see on the glass table between the easy chairs. The shriveled tea bags had been plucked out and carelessly left to dry in a silver ashtray beside the mugs. Two mugs. His and hers. I had never drunk tea in my life.

By the time I had kicked over the table and deposited my property on all three floors, wide as a life, darkness was falling across the Thomas Cole paintings and down the sculpted front banister to render the gold velvet of the living room sofas a mortuary gray. I dropped the last box in the master bedroom. I stumbled to the picture window on the third-floor landing. With the thinning and blushing of the treetops, our view of the Hudson—my view—had improved in the months since our last visit. The river was a strip of metal, tinged red at its edges as if recently forged. The sun was in mid-drop behind the hills. I stood there for several minutes, scratching my gut, king of the castle, overseeing the end of the day.

I retrieved my bottle of gin from the passenger seat. I found the tonic in a kitchen cabinet, a dusty glass above the sink, and poured myself a triple with which to seal my vow. I would retreat to the woods. Nature and nurture myself back to life. I would hole up in the country house I had bought to save my marriage in the bleak hope of salvaging myself instead.

With the arrival of night came a mean chill. A swallow of gin helped. I found the chandelier dimmer and twisted on the lights. I was visible now in the nearest kitchen window, fatter than I had been in years, all belly and woe as I hung over my drink. I toasted myself and my downfall, the gesture reflected in place of the dark outdoors. To the ex-urban ex-husband. To a fresh start.

MORNING CAME WITH AN

assault of unfamiliar morning sounds. The chock-chock of a lumberjack in the distance. The scrabble of something like a squirrel, or perhaps Sasquatch himself, on the roof. A repetitive squeak just outside the bedroom window—a kind of woo-YEEP, woo-YEEP—that would have been promptly repaired by the superintendent of any decent building in New York City. My lower back was tied in its usual knot. Only when it loosened could I sit up in bed and swing my feet to the cold floor.

I rose to the first day of the rest of my life with two sore shoulders and a crimped neck. Those of us born and raised in the city are not accustomed to moving objects heavier than taxicab doors or making anything more substantial than a deadline. The usual clench of my lumbar region was matched by knots in both biceps that prevented any straightening of arms. As I eased myself out of the bedroom and down the hallway, my legs joined the mutiny. A dozen lifted and lowered boxes and I was broken at all my hinges. You’re no man, whispered the walls, in her voice, as I slid my hands along them for support.

To travel anywhere in this house, a circuitous path had to be charted between stately cupboards of black walnut and whimsical Aalto armchairs, around standing screens of mahogany from the ‘20s and over carpets of hand-spun nomadic wool from the Southwest. There was no rhyme or reason to be detected in the array, rhyme and reason being hopelessly advanced concepts for a novice interior designer in a frenzy to acquire. The cedar-lined hot tub stood beneath the conical ceiling of the eastward turret, a round master bed in the westward turret behind me. Cluttering the hall between them were enough antique iron day beds and Hepplewhite settees to suggest a Victorian slumber party. Her Dutch bell-metal candelabra was hung in perfect position, there in the third-floor hallway, to receive my forehead and my shouts of shit and son of a fuck before I swung it wildly aside and pushed on. Faintly stained by the stained-glass windows, I teetered at the top of the staircase. Then I limped down.

Our country house was Pippa’s storage facility, her practice ground and her display case, all of which left little room for a man of my size. Still, the place was perfect for her. She was interested in the country, inasmuch as the city could no longer contain all her furnishings, but she was not about to bunk in a barn. Pippa was no more likely to settle in a modest clapboard house on some hunk of untamed acreage than I was. She had come to New York from a nation in disarray and had worked ever since to adopt an American semblance of panache. This flimsy structure and its overpriced contents, this grandiose front foyer with its tinny ringing after every footstep, these faux-cathedral ceilings and fabric-coated walls were a shrine to the divine power of image, a slapdash mock-up of richness, as was she. Here she could smell the roses through the open dining room window while setting the brushed-copper banquet table with her leopard-skin place mats and Limoges. Perhaps she was reminded of her African origins by the calm that shivered the grass here, by the quiet that pushed the clouds across the long empty minutes between her flustered adjustments of the Federal bull’s-eye mirror on the maid’s-room wall. This idiotic house might have been snapped together like a toy, painted by numbers; but it gave her the feeling (and for this I was once grateful) of success.

All that the house lacked, I thought as I hobbled down the last few front stairs, were the three bags of Italian coffee I’d left in the door of the Sub-Zero freezer in the apartment. How the Christ could I have forgotten coffee? A country house ought to be supplied with the stuff on a regular basis, topped off by the kind of wheezy tanker trucks that pump the place full of gas and oil. I stalked across the living room and into the kitchen. I pillaged my boxes and managed to dig out the electric grinder, hoping—what? That it would have rebrimmed magically overnight, like a well? That my life could return to normal, that a mistake so large might be erased and that I could simply pluck up my wits and return?

The new car started with a thrumming self-importance. BMWs are designed to be effortless, or so I’d been assured at the dealership the day before, yet this one seemed more of a surly opponent. The vehicle was obviously aware, deep in its digital brain, of the incompetence of its handler. Convinced of it, then, as I zigzagged along the driveway and down the avalanche of a dirt road to the street and barely managed the hard-right turn toward town.

Town was a shabbier outpost than the word might imply. The sloping doze of crayon-colored hills and gray river and off-season farms gradually gave way to a main street of actual buildings. The storefronts appeared to be plywood and to tilt precariously against one another for support. The tattered awnings and rotted wooden benches were hopelessly outdated without being quaint. The feeling that cracked the pavement, that dusted the empty sidewalks and creaked the useless store signs, was that of a place abandoned in a hurry, the site of a recent plague or receded flood. There was no trace of youth or spontaneous human activity: no razz of a skateboard, no snarl of a motorcycle, no teenage laughter or yuppie couple strolling anywhere along the brief length of what must have passed for The Strip. No inkling of renewal. Nothing I could have done. The tobacco shop that I might have arranged to be purchased and converted to a Cinnabon would continue to sag and stink where it was. The clothing store whose window displayed a single sun-blanched tracksuit would never be born again as a Foot Locker or a Gap. There was no possible investment for an investment banker: no future, no equity, no growth potential whatsoever. This was it, this row of has-been businesses servicing the same collection of old-timers who ordered the usual and shambled out the door. I found what had to be a bar, Henry’s Place, and shambled in.

The door smacked closed with the shimmy of a sleigh bell. Coffee? I called out.

Hm, replied the mustachioed man, denim shirt, who stood behind the bar. This, absolutely, was Henry. There was an unmistakable air of ownership in his slouch and in the hamlike hands he planted on the long counter of imitation oak. Drifting somewhere above the half dozen stools, two tables, and open metal trash can was the promising scent of old grounds.

I repeated: You got coffee?

Hm.

Is that a yes? Great. I glanced around. I take it you don’t do espresso.

Machine’s busted, he said, with a gruffness that suggested he might have been the one who had sauntered over with a two-by-four and busted it. His

Reviews for The Golden Hour

[pattylee-621744 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It’s the old problem. 3.5 stars. The only thing I found annoying was the shifting in three timelines. I understand why, it sometimes I got whiplash. Enjoyable and a time frame I favor.

[lorifox · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If I could give this book more than five stars, I would do so. It’s that good. It is well-written with beautiful descriptions, but not too much, and interesting characters whom I felt like I knew personally. My favorite part of the book, however, is how Beatriz Williams skillfully weaves together two seemingly parallel plot lines that ultimately crossover in a beautifully satisfying ending. Pure literary genius.

When I first read the synopsis, I assumed that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor would occupy the role of protagonists in the novel. Happily, I was wrong. While their presence is very much evident in the storyline, they are background characters who act as catalysts for setting certain events in motion. Also, by remaining in the background, they don’t overshadow the main characters like celebrities attending a school play. Lulu, Benedict, Elfriede, and Wilfred roam freely though the story in the light of their own making.

I must mention the dedication page: “To women and men everywhere who live with depression. You are loved. You are needed. The night will pass.” One of the main characters suffers from depression, and just as this dedication offers hope at the beginning of the book, Williams portrays it with a touching empathy that maintains this hopefulness through to the end of the story.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get lost in a good story. I’m thankful I won the ARC in a Goodreads giveaway, or otherwise I might not have discovered this richly satisfying and mesmerizing novel on my own.

[jeanbmac · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting historical background.

[bookwyrmm_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Intriguing historical fiction about some events that I knew nothing about.

[bookscookslooks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Lulu is a gossip columnist and she, like most everyone else wants to know what the Duke and Duchess of Windsor are up to in the Bahamas. History tells us that they have been sent there to give Edward a purpose and to get him away from the rest of the Windsors after his abdication. But what purpose are they really serving?Lulu does not find out but she has a lot of fun trying as she goes out drinking with her love and other friends. But there is more going on as her love disappears and she finds out things about him that perhaps she might not want to know but Nassau always remains golden.Not my favorite book by the author.

[janarose1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Lulu, a gossip columnist, travels to Nassau, to write stories about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. She quickly becomes a favorite of the Duchess, after making an agreement to write only positive stories about the couple. I'm not sure what to say about this book. It was extremely slow moving and all of the action took place off stage. The clandestine activities, and murder were dealt with in such a small and insignificant manner. Most of the book was Lulu drinking and going out with Thrope, her romantic interest. Overall, a huge waste.

[l4mo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The stories of Lulu and Elfriede and their Thorpe men. Stories told from different places and at different times in history, “surprising” interconnectedness at the end, a lead character I mostly didn’t care for, The Golden Hour was definitely not my favorite.I enjoy a good historical fiction, but this was, as I’m calling it, historical fiction lite crosses with harlequin lite, all tied up in a red bow. This books reads like a book written by somebody who writes a ton of historical fiction, and was assigned a new time to write about and not inspired from an infatuation or obsession with the time periods to begin with. Given all the praise I certainly hope that Summer Wives is better than this.

[ethel55_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Although the book takes place in a couple of locations, it's the Nassau story that really captured my attention and how it lead to the other sections. Journalist Lenora (Lulu) Randolph is sent to Nassau in 1941 to report a society column for Metropolitan magazine--Americans are hungry for news of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor who are appointed there the war. The heat, the glamour, the drinking, the Red Cross, Lulu has her hands full until she finally receives the all important invite to the Governor's House and a deal with the Duchess is hatched. Crossing paths with Thorpe, a man from the airplane, continues to add more mystery to this historical tale. Elfriede's sections shine an interesting light on post-partum depression, so debilitating but handled so poorly in the early 1900's.

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor up to in the Bahamas in the 1940s? It's anyone's guess, but their activities certainly generated plenty of gossip, which in this novel is faithfully reported by Lulu, an American gossip columnist stations in Nassau during WWII. While covering the Windsors, Lulu encounters and falls in love with Thorpe, a British man with connections to the intelligence community. As the story of Lulu and Thorpe unfolds, war and family history each play a part in keeping apart and bringing together these lovers. Overall, this novel made for an enjoyable read and I'd highly recommend it to those interested in this era.

[plumcover3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Bahamas 1941, sun, romance, and a great job as Journalist Lulu Randolph arrives to give a glamorous bit of copy to a Society magazine while she gets closer to the fascinating couple. Lulu finds that familiarity to the Golden ones brings more than she bargained for, as the edges of war time, unfortunate political connections, spies, and whispers of treachery arise during a time when the Young journalist must consider where her loyalties truly lie. Both time an place emerge as key characters in this revolving tale which layers the story effectively for the reader.

[girlwellread · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A special thank you to Edelweiss, William Morrow, and HarperCollins Canada for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.Budding journalist Lulu travels to the Bahamas in 1941 to investigate the Duke of Windsor—the former King Edward VIII—and his wife, whose love affair caused the Duke to abdicate the British throne. Her assignment becomes complicated when the Duke's shady politics become apparent and when she falls in love with Thorpe, a scientist, who disappears without a trace.From the opening chapter, Beatriz Williams captivates her reader. This sweeping novel is beautifully written with elements of mystery and intrigue. She effortlessly weaves together dual plot lines each richly crafted with meticulous details. Williams is one of those authors whose writing completely transcends with her elegant and awe-inspiring prose. The difference between four and five stars was simply because I wanted more scenes with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and more from the other historical cast. Is that even a criticism, wanting more? Give this slow burn a read, you will not be disappointed.

[harperhunter · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the two different storylines, but at some point I started to wonder where they were headed, and how they would connect. And then in the last 50 pages, it all came together and made sense. Even if it hadn't, this is a well-written, interesting story.

[fredreeca · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Lulu is sent to the Bahamas to learn more about Edward and Wallis, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Lulu ends up investigating a murder which takes her to London. This leads her down a path of espionage and and crime she never expected.
This is not my favorite Beatriz Williams book. This story starts slow and I stayed confused during most of it. It is told in two voices, Lulu and Elfriede. And Elfriede's tale is the one that kept me reading this book. Her part of this novel is a better story than Lulu's. I found the characters a little flat and I felt like I didn't know enough about them. They sort of do things "out of character". And as I was reading, I was questioning. "What the devil did I miss!?"
I did enjoy the historical aspect. It is very well researched. All of her novels are! This story just left me confused and a little bored. But, if you have not read Beatriz, I would start with one of her other books and pick this one up later.

[clp412 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.5 Stars rounded up. This was a long book and I admit it might have been the wrong book at the wrong time for me. This is a great overall book, but I didn't have a connection to a few of the characters. Lulu in the Bahamas was one I connected to, but even at times I didn't want her making choices she did. This was a slow burn and the last 50 pages wrapped up the book well. I like that this book was a different setting and situations than I had read before, and I'll take full responsibility for not loving it, although I respect the writing and the author. Thank you to LibraryThing Early reviewers for the opportunity to read this book!

[amelianovich · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

indy's review Jun 29, 2019 · editreally liked itbookshelves: librarything-giveaways 3.5 stars. It took me well over 150 pages to get into this story. That being said I did enjoy this book. Because of the dual timelines, though, I really needed to focus and not let my mind wander. The story is about love and war and the struggle to go on against all odds. The two main characters, Lulu and Elfriede, were complicated women with complicated lives. I enjoyed Elfriede’s story more. Beatriz Williams is a beautiful writer who gave me a history lesson on the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and and an unsolved murder. I may boost this book up to 4 stars.

[nancyjcbs · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was fortunate to receive an Advanced Readers Edition through Library Thing and the publisher William Morrow.I am a dedicated fan of Beatriz Williams' writing and The Golden Hour can be named as one of my favorites by this author. Like other novels there is romance, mystery, and a backdrop of true events in history.Lulu and Elfriede are the heroines of the book. Elfriede is a married German woman who falls in love with an Englishman. Lulu is an American widow who falls in love with Elfriede's son. Both English men serve their country: Wilfred during World War I, Benedict during World War II. My favorite backdrop is Lulu's story since it's set in the beautiful Bahamas. Lulu writes a gossip column focusing on the famous residents of Nassau - The Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson.I highly recommend this novel.

[whiskeyinthejar-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.5 starsI received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.“Was yours ever hit?”“No. Not a scratch. I suppose even bombs have a sense of irony.”“Not really,” I say. “That's just human illusion. We imagine there's an order to things, because it's too awful to consider the randomness of fate.”The Golden Hour is historical fiction that mainly follows two women decades apart while slowly but surely weaving their stories together. We first meet Elfriede in a Swiss clinic where she was sent after she can't feel anything for her newborn and talks about a darkness that dwells in her. Today we would call it postpartum depression but in the early 1900s, no one quite knows what to do with her. There she meets an Englishman recouping from pneumonia and they have a soulmates connection but with Elfriede still married, they can't really act on anything.The other woman we follow is Lulu in 1941 just as she is arriving in the Bahamas to cover gossip about the scandalous Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Edward and Wallis Simpson. There she gets caught up in possible treasonous acts and meets Benedict Thorpe, a man she thinks is more than he is letting on.It's so easy and so safe to fall in love when the universe is against you.While Elfriede's story is relayed from the beginning, chronologically, we start more towards the end with Lulu's story and are constantly backtracking and shooting forward to gain information on how she ends up in London with Benedict's sister, which is where we first meet her and the mysterious government agent, Mr. B. The pov changes also include first person and third person different narratives; it works to keep the two women drivers of their own stories but I can see how this could affect the flow of the story for some.While Lulu and Elfriede are fictional characters, they are surrounded by real events and real historical figures of their times. World War I plays a part in Elfriede's story, affecting her life's course and World War II obviously plays a big part in Lulu's story. For the most part though, the gravitas of the Wars are kept to the outside, Pearl Harbor is discussed but being in the Bahamas during the time and lack of Internet keeps the news to feeling surreal. The focus is more microcosm and how the Wars are personally affecting these two women and how it will connect them.I thought it was intriguing how the author made the Windsors, somewhat, central and key, along with the real murder mystery of Henry Oakes; little moments in history that aren't completely solved are fun to read different takes on.“Life is made up of these little crossroads, after all,” he said. “A million daily forks in the road.”The slow weaving of Elfriede and Lulu may feel meandering for a while, I thought the latter half started to drag a bit but it was still curiously interesting to see how the author ultimately ended up placing all the characters to culminate in the ending. The ending was rushed and key emotional moments were crammed, taking away from the reader from getting time to digest and deliver a bigger impact on key moments. However, if looking to disappear for a few hours, The Golden Hour will keep you intrigued about how all these characters touch and impact each other's lives and how it could feel so helpless and hopeful all at the same time during World War I and II.

[bookmarque · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good phrases and insights throughout; hallmarks of good writing. The well-placed observation. I had a hard time getting a handle on Lulu; her time before coming to the Bahamas. I think that could have been sharper and the info revealed a little earlier. When it is though, things are at first surprising then shocking. Lulu is one cold, calculating person.For me it was hard to figure how the two timelines would join up. When they finally did it was pretty much the end of the book. It’s satisfying, but a bit of a stretch. I felt the romance angle was played a bit too hard - there is a lot of sex and a lot of longing and pining. It made for a prolonged story that blunted the more dire elements of the plot.Most of that revolves around the ex-King of England and his wife Wallis. Characterized as the most romantic relationship on earth, Williams portrays them as more practical and disappointed in their calculations. I know very little about them or if they really were Nazi sympathizers and arranged Sir Harry Oakes’s death, but that’s very much implied here. And since that crime hasn’t been solved to this day, and that the Duke never held another post for the government, maybe it’s true. Maybe he was just incompetent. Either way it was a nice device to weave a plot around. I don’t read a lot of WWII fiction and I’m glad I made an exception for this although I think it could have used some trimming.

[liz1564 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This novel is about two women Elfriede von Kleist and Lulu Randolph whose stories are separated by forty years and joined by a thread at the end of the novelWhen the novel opens Lulu Randolph, a twenty-five year old journalist with a New York magazine owned by her father, is in Nassau looking for her big break. The Duke of Windsor, with his duchess, is the governor of the Bahamas. Lulu wants to break into their inner circle so she can write a juicy gossip column about the Windsors and their society buddies. She tries to act the cigarette smoking, whiskey drinking (one of her main sources is a bartender) journalist while still presenting the image of a post debutante. She enjoys life in the tropics and her $200 a week salary but feels the urge to do some reporting on more serious subjects. When Wallis Simpson Windsor befriends Lulu in the hope that the reporter can polish her tarnished image, Lulu’s life becomes a whirl of parties and charity work as she faithfully records the duchess’s public persona of caring for the British Crown’s subjects. She also meets a charming English botanist who may be more than he seems.Elfriede ‘s life is a 180 turn turn from Lulu’s. In 1900, the twenty-two year old German baroness has been in a Swiss asylum for two years. After her son was born she became severely depressed and the family sent her away to be “cured” or maybe not. The asylum, for very wealthy patients, was run like a fine hotel so there was really no incentive for the von Kleist family to welcome back the young mother who was being treated so well. Elfriede does not do much to counteract her situation until she falls deeply in love with a fellow patient, a charming Englishman recovering from a severe accident. Since Elfriede respected and admired, rather than loved, her much older husband, her feelings for Wilfred Thorpe were entirely new to her. This soulmate love continues after she is recalled home due to a crisis and for years afterward. She remains true to those she loves, not just Wilfred but others as well. It is the driving force in her life.The book blurb teases the Windsor angle. However, very little is done with their story. The Duke may be passing on information to a German agent or not. A messy murder is touched on and not really explored. Who was the bartender really and why did he vanish? And what does Benedict the botonist find? For all the time spent in Nassau the final actions seem rushed. And the link between Elfriede’s and Lulu’s story is almost a deus ex machine with the introduction of a savior in the form of a character last seen as a child. I did enjoy reading the novel. I just wish it were two books with more plot added to the character studies.

[kathy_h_8 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I started The Golden Hour (thanks to LibraryThing AND Edelweiss for the ARCs) with some excitement and some trepidation, as I've had difficulty catching on to Ms. Williams' previous novels. This was no different but I persevered, and was pleasantly surprised as I became wrapped up in the dual stories of Lulu and Elfriede. I felt the heat of the Bahamas, and the chill of a war-torn London. But about two-thirds of the way, after denouement and denouement, I was exhausted, and wondering why I wasn't done. When the same thing keeps happening to the characters, it gets a little redundant. I wanted to know what happened, but felt Williams took WAY too long to wrap things up. I also found some of the characters' actions to be unusual, in that they were a bit contrived. Lulu is sarcastic and flip, yet falls rapturously in love in the blink of an eye. What did I miss? Elfriede...same...and then she travels halfway around the world, after children that aren't hers. It was as if Williams expected us to know more about her characters, as if I missed reading a prequel. It's a good story, just could've used some editing. And one last quibble - the use of the "f" word seemed contrived and out of place. I love a good curse word, and don't mind reading them, but these "f" seemed only for shock value.

[bonnie.franks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a lovely read, a dessert of a book.I have read several of Beatriz Williams' books, and she was on my must read list after the first one. Her writing is sincere, flowing, smooth, wonderful. This book is certainly no exception.It had me loving the protagonist after the first page. I loved several people before this book was done. The situations and the surroundings are so well described that you feel you actually packed your suitcase and went there. The characters are people you talk to after you close the book (finally) to go to sleep. I love the style it is written in, with two voices sharing chapters, one after the other.I learned historical things reading the book as well as enjoying the read. There was romance, intrigue, heartache, an urgency to hurry and see what was going to happen next as well as a need to slow it down and read every nuance of every sentence.Loved it...as will you.My copy was provided to me by Librarything.com and the publisher and for that I thank them.

[kremsa-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thank you to Harper Collins for the ARC of The Golden Hour by Beatriz Williams. I've read and enjoyed a few of Ms. William's previous novels and this one did not disappoint. In fact, I think it might be my favorite to date.The novel takes place in the Bahamas in the early 1940s and in Europe during World War I. The author does an exceptional job of entwining the stories of the protagonists Lulu Randolph and Elfreide von Kleist during the two wars. Throw in the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, espionage and murder and the result is a truly engaging and captivating novel that is hard to put down. The characters are well developed and the author's descriptions of the different settings are so vivid and detailed that you actually can feel yourself there. A perfect summer read!