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Winn Van Meter is heading for his family’s retreat on the pristine New England island of Waskeke. Normally a haven of calm, for the next three days this sanctuary will be overrun by tipsy revelers as Winn prepares for the marriage of his daughter Daphne to the affable young scion Greyson Duff.  Winn’s wife, Biddy, has planned the wedding with military precision, but arrangements are sideswept by a storm of salacious misbehavior and intractable lust: Daphne’s sister, Livia, who has recently had her heart broken by Teddy Fenn, the son of her father’s oldest rival, is an eager target for the seductive wiles of Greyson’s best man; Winn, instead of reveling in his patriarchal duties, is tormented by his long-standing crush on Daphne’s beguiling bridesmaid Agatha; and the bride and groom find themselves presiding over a spectacle of misplaced desire, marital infidelity, and monumental loss of faith in the rituals of American life.

This book was WAY outside my normal genre, but I needed an audiobook for traveling, so I picked it up. I’ve vacillated about what rating to give it because it started a bit slow and had several flashbacks (which aren’t my favorite), but after about the first hour I really wanted to know what happened, so I kept listening.

The omniscient POV that includes a lot of different characters (not all of whom are relevant), but I think many of them were necessary as a whole story from Winn’s POV may not have been entertaining enough. Adding a few other POVs definitely helps.

This was such a unique story in that I didn’t really like it per se, but I was intensely curious. There weren’t many characters I enjoyed enough that I’d want to be friends with them, but the situations did pull me in a kept me reading. I honestly would have given it five stars for the sheer uniqueness of it if the ending had been a bit more satisfying, though the subtlety of it provided a comfortable ending.

R-rated for some swearing, alcohol use, and sex.

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For more general market fiction, try Welcome to the Pine Away Motel by Katarina Bivald.