Summer in Nantucket brings out the best and the worst in the residents.
Grace and Eddie Pancik are an acknowledged "power couple." He, with his real estate/construction business and Grace with her gardening business, their names are on everyone's lips that particular summer.
Madeline Llewelyn is Grace's best friend. They share confidences and keep each other's secrets. Until they don't.
Trevor, Madeline's husband is a pilot and away a lot. He doesn't figure into the story very much. But he is supportive of Madeline's writing and her need for a "room of her own," so when she rents an apartment for her writing space, he is completely behind it. She is determined to write something worthy of the generous advance she has received after the success of her dystopian novel, Islandia. So will she cross a line to achieve her goal?
Then when Eddie stops by Madeline's apartment to ask why she used another agent to rent the space, busybody eyes notice him there, and the first "rumor" springs to life. Soon many are chatting about the supposed affair between them.
Meanwhile, however, Grace and Benton Coe, the landscape architect helping her redesign her garden, seem to be spending an awful lot of time together, aside from their gardening.
What is going on? Can the rumor mill spin its wheels fast enough?
Meanwhile, the teenagers are stirring up their own brand of trouble. Eddie and Grace's twins, Allegra and Hope, are nothing alike. Allegra is narcissistic, spoiled, and cheating on her boyfriend Brick, Trevor and Madeline's son. Hope, quiet and studious, has her eye on Brick for herself, but she won't betray her sister.
The Rumor: A Novel is an intriguing story with twists and turns that kept me guessing, even as I suspected where much of it would go before the end. But there were a few surprises, and I liked the ending. A 4 star read for me.
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