“There’s an old saying about stories, and how there are always three versions of them: yours, mine and the truth. The guy who first said it worked in the film business, but it holds true for journalism too. We’re not really supposed to take sides. We’re supposed to deal in facts: Facts add up to truth.”
Those are the opening lines to Emily Henry’s novel Great Big Beautiful Life. The speaker is Alice Scott, a journalist who aspires to be a biographer. She’s hoping her big break will be to write the biography of Margaret, a famous wealthy socialite who was married to a pop singer until he died tragically. She then disappeared for 20 years. Alice discovered Margaret is living on Little Crescent Island.
Now, she’s competing against Hayden, a Pulitzer Prize winning biographer, to write Margaret’s biography and set the record straight. During the month-long trial, Emily and Hayden not only get to know Margaret but also each other. Margaret recounts her family’s path to wealth, her shy sister’s story and her marriage. But not quite all the details until Alice discovers some that have been hidden for years.
This is more than a romance. There’s a peek into the writing process, the unveiling of a complicated family history, and a mystery to solve. Along with getting to know Margaret’s family history, the author also reveals some of Alice’s complicated relationship with her own mother.
Here’s an Alice quote from the end of the book that is a nice summation, “It’s a love story. Like everything I write, that’s what it comes down to. Whom do you love? What makes your heartbeat or for whom would you unmake the world, and how would you build a new one?”
If you’re looking for an engrossing story of how wealth and fame can affect a family, then you must read Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry.
