Review & Giveaway: Tiny Little Thing by Beatriz Williams (GIVEAWAY CLOSED)

Title: Tiny Little Thing   

Author: Beatriz Williams         

Published: June 2015, G.P. Putnam’s Sons   

Format: Hardcover, 368 pages   

Source: Publisher   

In the summer of 1966,
Christina Hardcastle—“Tiny” to her illustrious family—stands on the
brink of a breathtaking future. Of the three Schuyler sisters, she’s the
one raised to marry a man destined for leadership, and with her
elegance and impeccable style, she presents a perfect camera-ready image
in the dawning age of television politics. Together she and her
husband, Frank, make the ultimate power couple: intelligent, rich, and
impossibly attractive. It seems nothing can stop Frank from rising to
national office, and he’s got his sights set on a senate seat in
November.

But as the season gets underway at the family estate
on Cape Cod, three unwelcome visitors appear in Tiny’s perfect life: her
volatile sister Pepper, an envelope containing incriminating
photograph, and the intimidating figure of Frank’s cousin Vietnam-war
hero Caspian, who knows more about Tiny’s rich inner life than anyone
else. As she struggles to maintain the glossy façade on which the
Hardcastle family’s ambitions are built, Tiny begins to suspect that
Frank is hiding a reckless entanglement of his own…one that may unravel
both her own ordered life and her husband’s promising career.

My thoughts: Beatriz Williams is back with another engrossing read and I found myself once again glued to the pages of this book. I just love her writing and the characters she creates. This book continues with another of the Schuyler sisters’ stories – the first sister’s story told in last year’s best-selling book, The Secret Life of Violet Grant. (I finally got a chance to read that and loved it!!! Review will be up soon.) Here, we get Tiny’s story, though Pepper does play a slight role.

My immediate thought upon finishing this book is that it sort of felt a bit Kennedy-esque, in that I could almost imagine Tiny as Jackie Bouvier Kennedy. She gets pulled into this family that is all about the politics – putting that image before everything else, and making sure that the image lands him his coveted political position.

Of course, it’s not quite as simple as that. There are secrets and affairs and Tiny’s sister coming to spend the summer with her and suddenly nothing is as it seems. I loved how the chapters alternated between the present, set in 1966, and just prior to Tiny getting married, in 1964. There are a lot of unanswered questions as you start reading, but very slowly things start to unravel and the picture comes together.

I admit that I found this book to be a bit slower at first than The Secret Life of Violet Grant, but then about a third of the way in, it picks up and I had a hard time putting it down. I ended up loving Tiny just as much as I loved Vivian in the prior book and cannot wait to read more about Pepper in her book (out later this year)! I just love these Schuyler sisters and love the way Beatriz Williams is telling their stories…so far the two books have been so different, yet so enjoyable.

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GIVEAWAY DETAILS – (US only)  

Thanks to the publisher, one reader can win a copy of Tiny Little Thing by Beatriz Williams.  To enter the giveaway, please fill out the form by June 30th.

Form closed

This giveaway is open to US residents only and ends June 30th.

Good Luck!!!