The Peacock Summer by Hannah Richell

NIGHTSTANDS & COFFEE TABLES

REVIEW BY MEREDITH MCKINNIE

“A house that first dazzles with beauty and promise can, after a while, feel quite different. Less fairy-tale castle and more gilded cage. Sometimes, it seems the promises we make to one another can start to feel less like love and more like binding chains.”

Lillian Oberon is a wealthy widow contemplating the end of her life and what it all meant. She is attached to her home, an eccentric estate full of a lifetime of her deceased husband’s collectibles, feathered birds, and secrets. Her marriage seemed the envy of everyone in the countryside, but the reality of her union left little to be desired. Her past was the catalyst for her lifetime of missed opportunities and wondering what if. When she finds true love, she doesn’t allow herself to abandon her duty and honor to pursue it. And as a woman at the end of her life, she regrets it. She is determined that her granddaughter Maggie’s experience not mirror her own. Lillian knows what it feels like to love and lose and refuse to take control of her own happiness. 

Maggie is a young woman with a past of her own. With an alcoholic and absent father and a mother who knowingly abandoned her as a young girl, Maggie has only known maternal love from Lillian, a woman who is not even biologically related to her. Maggie learns love and kinship are often separate, and she rebels against what is expected. Her reputation in town is questionable, and when she returns to care for ailing Lillian, she must either exist in isolation or restore the public’s faith in her. She struggles to maintain the massive house, as years of neglect and disrepair have left the family with mounting debt. Lillian refuses to sell the estate, and Maggie is left to save her grandparent’s legacy and her own future. Maggie’s past mistakes in love and the people she hurt along the way are the very ones who can help save her grandmother’s beloved home. In the process, Maggie learns who she really is, what she really wants, and how she can live the life her grandmother always wanted. 

Hannah Richell’s novel is dependent on plot, as the writing is somewhat simplistic. Reading, I could often predict the following lines, though plot developments frequently shifted and relied heavily on shock value. You find yourself rooting for true love all the while knowing it probably won’t happen. Richell allows readers to hope, but not sacrifice logic. The novel is full of lessons of female independence and not sacrificing happiness for security. Lillian feels she has no other choice but to marry a man to protect her family, and Maggie feels she must leave a man to protect herself. The shifts in time, from Lillian as a young woman to Lillian as an elderly lady unweave a story of deception, wisdom, and the burdens women silently bear.