By Its Cover is a series of posts wherein I read a book solely on my love of the cover. No reading the jacket, no checking reviews!
This is where I must confront my apparent obsession with books featuring elegantly dressed women on the cover. See here and here. Somewhere I read a phrase that this book was a “substantive beach read” which I thought to be an excellent turn of phrase and one which describes this book perfectly. It’s an easy to read page turner grounded in good writing, excellent dialogue (really, that can make or break a book) and a decently complex storyline with interesting characters.
The book revolves around Tiny (short for Christina) Hardcastle, who has recently married political scion Frank Hardcastle. Her husband is a womanizer and her father-in-law is ambitious for his son and prepared to do anything for his success. Meanwhile Tiny has a secret from her past which is rearing its ugly head. It all smacks squarely of the Kennedys to the point where I couldn’t help but envision JFK and Jackie for Frank and Tiny as I was reading.
The story in and of itself is nothing particularly mind blowing, but power, wealth and politics always make for a good read and that’s exactly what you have here. It might sound a little trite but the story is engaging and Williams has done a great job of conjuring up an authentic ’60’s vibe.
After I had finished reading I decided to take a look at what else Ms. Williams had written and discovered a couple of books I have thought about reading over the years, in particular The Secret Life of Violet Grant, which I learned is the story of Tiny’s sister. In fact, Tiny Little Things is one of four books involving sisters which I assume touch briefly upon each other but stand alone in their own right. It also explained my confusion as to why the final chapter in this book was about Tiny’s sister, Pepper, and was left completely open ended. I am betting that one of the books tells Pepper’s story. I intend to find out.
