Tiny Little Thing

Summary (from the 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.

 

Review: It's the summer of 1966 and Christina "Tiny" Hardcastle is poised for the illustrious future that her family has been grooming her for since birth. Her husband Frank has embarked on his first political campaign and together they make the ultimate power couple. Yet Tiny, who prides herself on her flawless life, has a secret from her past that threatens to crush the dreams that she, Frank, and Frank's family, have for their future. Yet Frank may be hiding secrets too. Alternating between chapters set in 1966 are chapters set in 1964, right before Tiny's wedding, that reveal the secret that she hid and why her marriage almost never took place.

 

I chose this book specifically because I read and enjoyed A Hundred Summers, also by Beatriz Williams. Before beginning this book, I did not realize that it is one of three linked novels, each of which focuses on a different Schuyler sister. However, aside from not knowing the back story of Tiny's sister Pepper, I don't think that limited my ability to enjoy or understand this novel.

 

There's much mention made of how Tiny is the perfect political wife and how Frank will use her to his advantage for his ambitions "until the pinnacle's reached sometime before menopause robs me of my photogenic appeal and my ability to charm foreign leaders with my expert command of both French and Spanish, my impeccable taste in clothing and manners, my hard-earned physical grace." Yet not only does Tiny seem to take no delight or even interest in maintaining this façade of perfection, she seems flawed from the beginning, which undermines this constant assertion that she never does anything wrong. To the family's disappointment, she's has two miscarriages and she drinks and smokes probably more than she should. Perhaps more shocking is that she is being blackmailed for incriminating pictures taken before her marriage. Yet while Tiny muses to herself, "What would that be like, not to give a damn what the other women think?" she doesn't seem to really care all that much. And despite telling the reader over and over "But you know me. I do what I'm supposed to do" she doesn't seem to always do what she's supposed to at all.

 

Because it was difficult for me to buy in to the idea that Tiny ever wanted to be a politician's wife, it was difficult to root for her to cover up her past and go along with the Hardcastle family's plans. Additionally, I found the final revelations about what happened in 1964 that caused her to move forward with her wedding and what secret Frank is hiding from his wife to be less than believable. Perhaps if I felt that Tiny really did want the life that Frank offers I could have bought in to her entering a loveless marriage, but as it stands, it didn't ring true for me.

 

Although I was unable to suspend disbelief for the plot twists that concluded this story, I did love idea of linked novels focusing on three sisters, as well as the setting in 1966 on Cape Cod. Williams does an excellent job of building suspense throughout the novel and keeping the reader guessing until the very end.

 

Stars: 3