Lady Sunshine by Amy Mason Doan

Lady Sunshine by Amy Mason Doan

Published by Graydon House, ISBN 9781525804670

Trade paperback, $16.99, 368 pages

Books set in the music scene of the 1970s are popular right now, (novels like Taylor Jenkins Reid's Daisy Jones and the Six, Emma Brodie's Songs in Ursa Major, Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau and Ronald Brownstein's nonfiction Rock Me on the Water) and if you fondly remember those days, Amy Mason Doan's new novel Lady Sunshine is for you.

The novel is set in two time periods- 1979 and 1999- at the Sandcastle, the home of once-popular folk singer Graham Kingston. The Sandcastle is a sprawling rural estate, where Graham, his wife Angela, and teenage daughter Willa live in a commune-like existence, along with the myriad of stragglers and fans who show up.

In 1999, Graham's niece Jackie, a Boston music teacher, has inherited the Sandcastle and returns to pack up the remains of the place and prepare it for sale after the death of Angela. Graham is already dead, and the story hints that there is something mysterious about his death, as well as questions about what happened to Willa.

While there, Jackie meets Shane, a musician who tells her that Angela asked him to record a tribute album at Graham's studio at the Sandcastle. Angela gave Shane a notebook with Graham's original music and lyrics, and although Jackie wants to finish the task and go back to Boston, something from the past haunts her.

Jackie came to stay at the Sandcastle one summer in 1979 when she was 17 years old. She didn't know her aunt and uncle well, and it is with Willa whom she creates a solid friendship bond. Willa teaches Jackie to surf, and they write songs together.

Although Graham is a hero to the many people who come and stay at the Sandcastle, there are hints that Angela and Willa think differently about him. After Jackie witnesses something disturbing, she and Willa decide to do something that results in tragedy.

Jackie lost touch with the Kingstons after that summer, and returning to the Sandcastle twenty years later brings up things she doesn't want to remember. She thinks she sees Willa on the property, although no one has seen Willa in twenty years, and other items show up that relate to the mystery of the night of Willa's disappearance.

Lady Sunshine is a story of young female friendship, with a mystery twined around it. Anyone who grew up in that 1970s time period will be transported back to those summer days, when music and friendship meant everything.

 

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on their Summer 2021 Beach Reads Blog Tour.