bittersweet book by miranda beverly whittemore

Still, I rooted for Mabel, Ev, and Ev's younger sister Lu, who may just be the only completely sympathetic redeeming character. The characters in this novel are, for the most part, deceitful, selfish and unlikable, nobody is exactly who they initially seem to be.

BITTERSWEET grabbed me from page one with Mabel's almost lyrical narration. Mabel learns that some secrets carry a heavy price, maybe even a deadly one. Secrets that go back generations and threaten the present clan. She longs to be part of the family, even as she learns secrets. When Ev invites Mabel to her summer home, Mabel quickly falls in love with the Winslow extended family and the lifestyle they enjoy. Mabel must choose: either expose the ugliness surrounding her and face expulsion from paradise, or keep the family’s dark secrets and make Ev's world her own.Ĭollege freshman Mabel Dagmar, from a working class family, plain and slightly overweight is enthralled by her wealth, beautiful roommate Ev Winslow.

Before she knows it, she has everything she’s ever wanted: friendship, a boyfriend, access to wealth, and, most of all, for the first time in her life, the sense that she belongs.īut as Mabel becomes an insider, a terrible discovery leads to shocking violence and reveals what the Winslows may have done to keep their power intact - and what they might do to anyone who threatens them. Mabel falls in love with midnight skinny-dipping, the wet dog smell that lingers near the yachts, and the moneyed laughter that carries across the still lake while fireworks burst overhead. Ev invites Mabel to spend the summer at Bittersweet, her cottage on the Vermont estate where her family has been holding court for more than a century. On scholarship at a prestigious East Coast college, ordinary Mabel Dagmar is surprised to befriend her roommate, the beautiful, wild, blue-blooded Genevra Winslow. Suspenseful and cinematic, New York Times best-seller Bittersweet exposes the Gothic underbelly of an idyllic world of privilege and an outsider’s hunger to belong.

Bittersweet book by miranda beverly whittemore