The Girls of August by Anne Rivers Siddons

Since no one is doing much traveling these days, I was looking for a book that felt like taking a beach vacation. Somewhere I saw a list of such books and on it was The Girls of August, so I requested the e-book from the library. Three women, who have been friends since their 20s when their (now) husbands were all in medical school together, started years earlier to take a girls-only beach vacation each year. The first year, they went to the very snazzy beach house of their doctor friend Teddy's first wife (who was soon off to greener pastures). The other 3 woman felt that was no loss. Then Teddy married Melinda, who became their great friend and a regular member of the Girls of August--until her untimely death. Then Teddy married wife #3--the 23 year old Baby, at whose family beach house this story is set. Teddy is hoping she will be easily assimilated into the group but she's significantly younger than the rest of the "girls"-- so they have pretty much nothing in common. Plus they think she's a beautiful airhead (which turns out not to be true). There isn't much to this story. The house is on very isolated Tiger Island, so there's pretty much nothing else to do except hang out together--and pick on Baby. Rachel and Barbara seem extremely stressed out, though we don't find out why till pretty far into the book, and the narrator keeps talking about how nauseous she is. And they drink. And drink. And drink. Wine and mimosas and cointreau in the oatmeal. it's a wonder someone didn't fall into the ocean and drown.

I don't remember having read anything by this author before and I'm not sure this book will make me find something else of hers. But I did read some reviews of this on Amazon after the fact and many of her loyal fans did not love this book, so I may have to give her another chance.