In this episode, Elena Bowes talks to acclaimed author Beatriz Williams about her latest work of historical fiction, Husbands & Lovers. Two stories, post-war Cairo and modern-day New England are intertwined by two women and the choices they make.  Love, sacrifice, heartbreak and redemption all play a role in this poignant parallel story. In 1951 Hannah, a Hungarian refugee lives in Cairo in a joyless marriage with a British diplomat. She meets Lucien, a hotel manager, after she is bitten by a cobra, and the walls she has carefully built around herself start to crumble. He awakens a longing she had lost. Meanwhile Mallory is a single mother to 13-year-old Sam who desperately needs a kidney transplant. The only person who could be a match for Sam is his father Monk Adams, a now famous singer who Mallory hasn’t spoken to in 14 years since that fateful summer on Winthrop Island in 2008. Beatriz talks about why dual timeline stories appeal to her, how she likes to write about human drama against a historical backdrop and how wealthy New Englanders are like migratory birds when it comes to their summer rituals.

Beatriz Williams’s website.

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