"Darling," her mother took Daisy's face in her hands, "I want you to listen to me. I'm going to tell you this because someday it may be very important for you to remember." Her mother's face was serious, her big green eyes like snake skin. "If there's one thing you can be sure about in this life, it's that you won't always be kissing the right person."

I won this novel as a giveaway on Goodreads.

Tigers in Red Weather is about a family's secrets and intrigues in the years following the second world war. The story is told in five points of view: Nick (the book never specified what Nick was short for and I wish it had), her cousin Helena, their respective children Daisy and Ed, and Nick's husband Hughes. The novel jumps around chronologically, and it was interesting to see the same events and scenes from multiple perspectives. Much of the novel takes place at the family's summer home, Tiger House, on Martha's Vineyard.

Novels about relationships and human interaction seem to fall into two broad categories - ones where connections are made, and people feel deeply in sync with others, and ones where everyone seems to live on their own island, unable to fully relate to anyone else. This novel falls in the second category. Underneath the glamour and leisure of the summer home Tiger House, is an eery quality of betrayal and secrets, unspoken grudges and irritations, all underscored by the body of the murdered maid that is discovered by Ed and Daisy as children.

Things I loved about this novel: the beautiful cover that is a vintage Vogue photograph, the author is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Herman Melville, the beautiful, lyrical quality to the writing, and the glamorous quality of the characters and setting. All of the main characters were fascinating and intriguing, but the only ones who seemed like good people or ones I could actually like are Hughes and his daughter Daisy. Nick is terribly self-absorbed and selfish, Helena is weak (and not to mention an alcoholic and prescription drug addict), and Ed is seriously, seriously disturbed. (Interestingly, Ed, who is the the most detached and distant from his family, and viewed warily by everyone, is the only section told in the first person.) This is a beautiful debut novel with a narrative voice and characters who captivate.