
The Island Club
St Martin's Press
Published on 18. May 2026
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-1-250-27740-4 (ISBN)
Description
1956: On idyllic Balboa Island, just off the California coast, life seems peaceful and welcoming. But when the lives of three women begin to unravel in shockingly different ways, an unlikely friendship - and the game of tennis - may be the only thing that can save them.
Milly Kinkaid's plan to fix her crumbling marriage seems to be falling apart before it even begins. She believed that moving her young family from Hollywood to Balboa Island might entice her increasingly distant husband to come home earlier after work. Instead, he's barely coming home at all.
Society matriarch Sylvia Johnson and her husband have been pillars of their community for decades and have just recently begun a new business venture: The Island Club, a place for members to swim, play tennis and dine in style. But when she learns that he has been risking their financial security and putting their family's future in grave danger, she's not only poised to lose the club, but the entire community she holds dear.
Meanwhile, standoffish loner Adele Lambert's entire world is on the brink of being destroyed if the dark secrets of her past and her hidden identity is revealed. Twenty years ago, she ran from a shameful scandal and left behind the only thing she ever loved. Now, terrified that the anonymity she's spent decades guarding will be exposed, but desperate to stay afloat, she risks everything to return to the game that brought her to her knees all those years before.
Set against the sun-drenched beaches of Balboa Island, with its prim and proper 1950s facade, The Island Club is a story of love, loneliness and the lies we tell ourselves - and what can be gained when the truth is finally revealed.
Milly Kinkaid's plan to fix her crumbling marriage seems to be falling apart before it even begins. She believed that moving her young family from Hollywood to Balboa Island might entice her increasingly distant husband to come home earlier after work. Instead, he's barely coming home at all.
Society matriarch Sylvia Johnson and her husband have been pillars of their community for decades and have just recently begun a new business venture: The Island Club, a place for members to swim, play tennis and dine in style. But when she learns that he has been risking their financial security and putting their family's future in grave danger, she's not only poised to lose the club, but the entire community she holds dear.
Meanwhile, standoffish loner Adele Lambert's entire world is on the brink of being destroyed if the dark secrets of her past and her hidden identity is revealed. Twenty years ago, she ran from a shameful scandal and left behind the only thing she ever loved. Now, terrified that the anonymity she's spent decades guarding will be exposed, but desperate to stay afloat, she risks everything to return to the game that brought her to her knees all those years before.
Set against the sun-drenched beaches of Balboa Island, with its prim and proper 1950s facade, The Island Club is a story of love, loneliness and the lies we tell ourselves - and what can be gained when the truth is finally revealed.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Dimensions
Height: 168 mm
Width: 247 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
502 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-250-27740-4 (9781250277404)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Person
Born in England, NICOLA HARRISON moved to California where she received a BA in Literature at UCLA before earning an MFA in creative writing at Stony Brook. She is a member of The Writers Room, has short stories published in The Southampton Review and Glimmer Train and articles in Los Angeles Magazine and Orange Coast Magazine. She is the author of Montauk, Hotel Laguna, and The Show Girl.