When You Loved Me

by Beatriz Williams

A young widow returns to her late father’s New England estate, only to be drawn into the hunt for the rumored pirate treasure that consumed his life, in this thrilling and moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Husbands & Lovers.

Local history insists that a legendary pirate buried his treasure somewhere beneath Windward, the decayed Cooper estate on Winthrop Island, but Lucy Cooper never trusted the fable that broke her family apart. When a widowed Lucy returns with her young daughter to grieve her estranged father, she discovers the property’s buried under a mountain of debt, and Ben Ressler has just turned up on her doorstep.

Thirteen summers ago, a teenaged Lucy never meant to fall in love with Ben, a Dartmouth football star vacationing next door at the Peabody estate, and the object of an all-consuming crush by Laura Peabody, Lucy’s best friend. Those two weeks with Ben were the best and worst of Lucy’s life, dooming her friendship with Laura. Now Ben’s returned to live quietly in the Peabodys’ caretaker lodge, after a fatal accident ended his dazzling NFL career. He’s also the last person who saw Lucy’s father alive.

As Lucy reconstructs her father’s troubling final days, she uncovers his research on the frozen winter of 1717, when a desperately wounded pirate sought refuge on Winthrop Island with an enigmatic healer. To Lucy, this history points the way to a different kind of how to forgive yourself for the mistakes of the past and earn a second chance at love. But just as Lucy’s long-buried emotions sear to the surface, a shocking turn of events reveals that someone else on the island will do whatever it takes to claim the fabled plunder.

A timeless story of love and atonement, When You Loved Me maps both a centuries-old treasure hunt and the intimate territory of the human heart, weaving together past and present as only Beatriz Williams can.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Romance, Fiction, Mystery, Summer, Audiobook, Summer Reads

464 pages, Hardcover

First published June 23, 2026

Reviews

[Lily Steeper · Rating 4 out of 5]

When You Loved Me is layered, intertwining a modern second-chance romance with a colonial 1717 pirate mystery. It is set off the coast of New England on the fictional Winthrop Island, the signature backdrop for Beatriz Williams's other novels. Here, widowed Lucy Cooper returns with her seven year old daughter, Punkin, for her estranged father's funeral. He vanished in the water, and while going through his belongings she finds a mountain of debt and proof of his lifelong addiction to solving a pirate mystery.
More so, Ben Ressler turns up on her doorstep. She had been gone for thirteen years, not visiting her father or the island, living in Europe with her mother and step siblings. But seeing Ben brings up the past; they fell in teenage love her last summer on the island. Those two weeks were bittersweet, but ended in disaster, costing Lucy her relationship with her best friend, Laura. In the years since, Ben had become an NFL star, only for his career to end tragically when he accidentally killed someone in a tackle.
As we watch Lucy reconnect with Ben, we see flashbacks to 1717, detailing the harsh winter of a wounded pirate who reaches Winthrop Island and falls in love with an enigmatic healer named Hephzibah. These chapters give clues to the supposed treasure Lucy's father spent his life after. As secrets come out and traces of the past surface, we culminate to a dramatic ending.
I absolutely adored the backdrop of this novel. The chapters set in the 1700s were not exactly exciting but became so intricate. I found the concept of a pirate reaching colonial America so unique. Weaving together New England legends of pirate treasure was so intriguing. As for Lucy's chapters, I came to like how multi-faceted they were. We had flashbacks to her teenage years, conflict with losing her father, scandals of someone trying to find the supposed treasure, and her romance with Ben. Though, I went back and forth on how her and Ben developed. Some of the timing seemed off, and his background in the NFL could have been better incorporated. Reintroducing Lucy's old best friend, Laura, also felt a bit incongruous. Punkin was a bit unrealistic in her maturity, though served as a driving force for Lucy.
As a whole, this book brings so many elements together. It so confidently blends together historical, fiction, mystery, motherhood, and love. Lucy was a good narrator to combine all this, and I appreciated her first person accounts. As the suspense builds in the closing chapters, I was hooked.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for this copy!

[Larissa Cook · Rating 2 out of 5]

If a man’s proposal to me includes the following: “…laying my balls out on the table for you…” I AM SAYING NO

There was a lot going on in this book. Pirates, high school sweethearts, cancer, girls basketball, step sisters who are in rehab, step dads laundering money, amputees, buried treasure, attempted murder, a girl named “punkin,” the greatest song writer of this generation (a man named monk), and a football player who actually murders someone on the field. I do think we could have cut some of these unnecessary aspects and about 150 pages of this book (quite literally shy of 500 pages?!) and had ourselves a much more neatly packaged story.

The story itself drags on and on yet seems to suddenly skip ahead to something that you’re wondering how you got from point A to point Y so quickly (the rekindling of Ben and Lucy, for example). The dual timelines were confusing and not well labeled (then/now, i’m not keeping the years straight so I can’t be bothered with that). It is also SO classic to have someone live their lives devoted to something (Lucy’s dad and the treasure on his land) and then Lucy shows up and finds the treasure within 13 minutes (okay, exaggerating but basically).

I didn’t connect with any of the characters but found the death of the football player resulting in Ben’s seclusion to be such a random and unnecessary plot. Here is the most famous ex football player ever becoming a girls basketball coach, no one will notice. It was just so unnecessary and truly added so many extra pages to the story.

This was my first Beatriz Williams book and while i’ve heard good things about her, unfortunately I don’t think her writing or stories are for me. Thank you to Netgally for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[vicky ꨄ︎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*

I devoured this book up, literally could not put this down. I was instantly drawn from the first page. It’s a very beautiful story The story does span out between three timelines - present day Lucy, teen Lucy and Hephzibah Winthrop (one of the settlers in 1717). I absolutely loved to read each and every timeline. At first I was a bit anmoyed about having Hephzibah pov but I grew to love it. Having to read about the whole treasure mystery was very interesting and I loved watching the whole mystery unfold. Punkin is an immediate icon, she took over this whole book. Adored her from the first moment we met her. This child is honestly the most intelligent person. She is such a charming child.

The whole teen timeline did piss me off at times which is why it isn’t a 5 star. Personally Laura threw me off so many times during that timeline but so did Lucy. Lucy honestly should’ve told her from the start. But I love their friendship especially towards the end of the book.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review.


———————————————


𐙚⋆°. preread

I requested the book because the synopsis sounds intriguing so I’m curious to see how I’ll like it.

[Ashlee Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

WHEN YOU LOVED ME by Beatriz Williams ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Winthrop Island (and Monk Adams) has a special place in my heart, and it was so wonderful to be back. I read this book on vacation and it was the perfect book to binge. Typically with multiple timelines, there is always one I am less interested in and skim over. But not in this book! I was hooked extremely fast and could not put this book down. I swooned, I laughed, I cried, and I never quite guessed what happened to the treasure!

I also felt like I could SEE this adapted into a film while I was reading it.

When her father died, Lucy returns to Winthrop Island with her daughter to settle her father affairs. Now that she is back she is forced to face her lost love, her messy departure, and her fathers obsessions.

Perfect if you like:
•Second chance romance.
•Mystery!
•Atmospheric setting.
•Unforgettable characters.
•Heartbreaking moments.
•Slow burn.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: 🌶️🌶️
Mood: 🍞🍫🫗

🚪: skip chapters 18 & 29 (minimal details) for explicit intimacy details.
⚠️: explicit language.

[Christina (Confessions of a Book Addict) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucy Cooper returns home to Winthrop Island after her father's mysterious death. She hasn't seen him as much as she would have liked to in past years due to her relocation to Europe and her father's preoccupation with treasure hunting, which she thinks is a dead-end road. But when she returns home to her father's house along with her daughter, Elise, she starts to wonder if her father was right all along, as many clues are pointing to a possible treasure. Also on the island is her former boyfriend, Ben Ressler, whom she spent a summer dating. Once they reconnect, Lucy realizes that there still may be something there. However, Ben is dealing with his own issues as he is now divorced, and his stint in NFL football has come to an end due to some upsetting circumstances. Quickly, Lucy realizes someone is stalking her on the island, and she starts to realize that perhaps it's someone who wants the information her father had regarding the treasure. Williams also includes flashbacks to the summer Ben and Lucy first dated, as well as a flashback to 1717 on Winthrop Island. When You Loved Me by Beatriz Williams is an engaging tale that combines elements of a beach read + romance + historical fiction; her fans won't be disappointed.
Read the rest of my review here:
http://www.confessionsofabookaddict.c...

[Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. From the first paragraph I was instantly drawn in and know that this is a book I will absolutely return to. It is a beautiful story full of loss, love, forgiveness, and healing.

Lucy Cooper has not been back to Winthrop Island in thirteen years. Now a widowed, single mother, she must return to childhood home following the death of her father. He has left behind a mess of research, clues, and a crippling amount of debt in the pursuit of discovering the treasure rumored to be buried on his land.

But the biggest surprise of all is when Ben Ressler shows up on her doorstep. Lucy hasn’t seen or heard from Ben since her last summer on Winthrop Island, when life was simple and they were just teenagers in love. She knows that Ben has had a career in the NFL, but has no idea why he would be back living on this small island. As they reconnect, she discovers the devastating truth of his return and realizes that some loves are never lost.

The story spans three timelines—present day Lucy, teenage Lucy, and Hephzibah Winthrop, one of the first settlers on the island in the early 1700s. These three narratives draw you in as the mystery of the buried pirate’s treasure unfolds and we learn the truth of Lucy and Ben’s past. Some of the chapters were so suspenseful I couldn’t put the book down and others so emotional I couldn’t stop crying.

This book is both heartbreaking and heartwarming, and I just loved everything about it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Kelly (eclectikollection) Abrams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine for providing an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Regrettably, I’m giving this 2.5 stars.

This was my second Beatriz Williams book, and after loving Beneath the Stars, I was excited to read this one, especially because the premise had so much potential. Buried pirate treasure, messy past relationships… it felt like a story I would love.

Unfortunately, this one just didn’t fully work for me. It started off strong, but the story felt underdeveloped and was hard to follow between the dual timelines, which I usually love. The overall pacing wasn’t consistent—it would drag at times, then suddenly something important would happen, and I was left like “wait how did we get here already?”

I really liked the idea of the pirate treasure storyline, but I wanted more of an actual treasure hunt aspect. That was the most interesting part to me and I kept wishing it went deeper there.
I also had a hard time connecting with the characters. I wanted more depth from them, and the relationships—past and present—never fully drew me in. Punkin was definitely the standout for me though; she felt more grounded than the adults half the time.

And this might just be a me thing, but the repeated use of certain words, especially “honey,” really started to stand out and pulled me out of the story.

Even so, I love Beatriz Williams’ writing and I’m excited to read whatever she puts out next, as well as explore more of her other work.

[Angie Miale · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had serious FOMO watching reviewers hand out five-star ratings to When You Loved Me, and I’m happy to report that this one absolutely lived up to the hype for me.

I enjoyed Beatriz Williams’s Husbands & Lovers, but I loved this one even more. When a finished copy arrived from my friends at Ballantine Books, I immediately pushed aside my carefully planned reading schedule and buddy-read it with @jenn.newm.reads. Despite being 464 pages long, we binged it in a day because it was impossible to put down.

One of my favorite things about this novel is how confidently it blends genres. This isn’t just a romance or just historical fiction. It’s a second-chance romance wrapped in a family mystery with a lost pirate treasure hunt woven through the middle. Somehow it all works.

Lucy Cooper returns to her family’s island after her father’s death while raising her young daughter, Elise—known affectionately as Pumpkin, one of the cutest child characters I’ve encountered in a long time. Back on the island, she reconnects with Ben, whose NFL career was cut short by injury. Their history is complicated, partly because Lucy’s best friend Laura once had feelings for him, and old wounds have never fully healed.

Alongside the contemporary storyline is the mystery surrounding Lucy’s father’s research into a lost pirate treasure dating back to 1717. The historical chapters took a little while for me to settle into, but once everything began connecting, I was fully invested.

I also have to give a shout-out to the family tree at the beginning of the book. More authors should do this.

My criticisms are relatively minor. There were a few character motivations early in the novel that didn’t entirely convince me, and there are a couple of moments where you’ll want to grab the characters by the shoulders and tell them to stop overcomplicating things and admit they love each other already. I also agree with other reviewers who have noted that the title and cover don’t quite capture the adventurous, genre-blending story inside.

Still, those are small complaints in an incredibly engaging novel. The mystery kept me guessing, the romance kept me rooting for the characters, and the pirate treasure storyline added a layer of fun that made this stand out from other historical romances I’ve read recently.

This is one of my favorite books of June and, so far, my favorite Beatriz Williams novel.

[Meliss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

New England and pirates and second chance romance with a hot football player.

I really liked this one! The alternating timelines were all equally as interesting; reading about Lucy and Ben’s first and second chances at love balanced out the difficult and oftentimes gruesome lives of Winthrop Islands earlier inhabitants. Lucy and Hephzibah’s lives on the island were vastly different but there were echoes of their stories within each other’s.

Also, I have only read one other book by this author but I always love when previous characters make an appearance!

[lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

my first from this author!

review to come

[Kailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beatriz Williams’s When You Loved Me is the best kind of bait-and-switch, a familiar, second-chance romance that slowly unravels itself to be something messier, a literary fiction about grief, memory, family lore, and the idealization of home and a past love. Safe to say I LOVED it!

The novel follows a widowed single mom, Lucy, after she returns to Winthrop Island following her father’s death and becomes drawn into both a treasure hunt (that her father was obsessed with) and a reunion with Ben, a former NFL player and her first love. This setup, specifically the pirate/treasure aspect, sounds almost whimsical, but Williams’s use of mystery as a tool to excavate family secrets, old wounds, and soured choices that have shaped both Lucy and Ben’s lives.

Beatriz Williams’s ability to evoke place and atmosphere is absolutely one of her writing superpowers. Her settings feel tactile, Winthrop Island’s coastal landscape, and elegant homes. All of the details she renders create the melancholic mood, especially at the beginning of the novel, when Lucy returns to Windward, the decaying Cooper estate, and finds decay—old, mushy cereal still in bowls, and evidence of her parents’ marital demise (a torn section of banister from a thrown bed).

To me, Lucy was absolutely the strongest part of the novel. Lucy feels like a real person I could meet. She’s practical in a way that doesn’t feel cynical, and deals with financial and emotional realities in a way that is developed and real. She looks back on her first love fondly, but she doesn’t romanticize the past or act as though reconnecting with Ben will magically solve her life.

Ben is equally interesting because Williams breaks the trope of a “perfect” male love interest. Their teenage romance holds weight in Lucy’s memory, but adult Ben arrives carrying disappointment and loss of his own. He’s an older, quieter version than the past golden-boy version of himself, and part of the tension comes from Lucy realizing she has to decide whether she still loves this new person, not just the one she remembers.

Their love story is less about electric chemistry (though it’s really there) and more about timing. Williams creates longing and yearning so well through scenes of conversation and pauses, through a shared history rather than dramatic declarations of love. At times, their miscommunication was a tad frustrating, but it felt true to who the characters were nonetheless. I think it would’ve felt wrong for them to begin bearing their hearts to one another early on.

At times, the mystery subplot feels a bit more elaborate than necessary; however, it unexpectedly strengthens the romance and plot rather than distracting from them. I really enjoyed the search through Lucy’s father’s notes, which mirrors Lucy and Ben revisiting their pasts.

This is a more mature love story rather than an epic one, and boy, does it stick the landing. Thanks so much to the lovely people over at Ballantine for an eARC of this book via NetGalley! It absolutely surpassed my expectations!

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.25 stars)

Thanks to PRH Audio for my free listening copy, and to Ballantine Books for my gifted eARC. All opinions are my own.

Football. (Stay with me, don’t run away!) Pirates. Buried treasure? Widow Lucy Cooper returns to Winthrop Island from France with her 7-year-old daughter after her father tragically passes away. She’s surprised to encounter her old flame Ben, a now-disgraced football player who is hiding himself away on the island at the same time.

In 1717, Hephzibah Winthrop, her sister, and her brother-in-law encounter runaway pirates who end up living with them during a brutal, grueling winter. This timeline takes a little longer to really get going compared to the modern ones, but I found that it really pulled me in by the middle to end of the book.

Particularly in the back half, the mystery suspense took over and I was fully locked in. I had so many theories about what was really going on and my earliest one was wrong, leading me to feel like I had a lot of apologizing to do to one of the characters!

My only minor gripe might be just a me thing - I’ve really been craving character-driven stories lately and I ended up feeling like I didn’t really know Lucy and Ben as well as I wanted to. If you go in knowing this story is more plot-driven though, you should be fine. I also couldn’t quite get on board with Lucy’s daughter’s nickname that was often used as her actual name - but again, just a me thing!

This was the longest of the three recent Winthrop Island books and even as a slower reader I did not feel like it was as long as it actually was, which I think tells you everything you need to know!

Audio thoughts: Because of my schedule this past week, I ended up doing a lot more audio listening than eyeball reading. In a perfect world, I think I’d have read more of this one with my eyes vs. ears. All the performances were very good, but it was a little tricky to keep track of the plot and characters, especially in the 1717 timeline.

[MrsHarvieReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before You Love Me by Beatriz Williams is a powerful story of love, friendship, grief, and forgiveness, with a side of treasure hunting. The ambitious plot features Lucy, a widowed mother of a 7-year old, who returns to her childhood home on Winthrop Island to settle her father’s estate after his sudden disappearance. Lucy has to sift through her father’s lifetime of research into the rumored pirate treasure left on his estate. She also has to confront Ben, her first love, who is living quietly next door after a fatal accident ended his professional football career, and Laura, her estranged best friend. Exerpts from a 1717 diary, related to the missing treasure, are woven in between the fast paced story.

I’m already a huge fan of this author, but this story grabbed me from page one and wouldn’t let go. In a bit of a departure, this book is a lot more suspenseful and steamy than what she’s written before. I was shocked by the violence and consumed by the breakneck pace of the plot. I was completely invested in the complicated, often messy, and thoroughly human characters, especially my new book boyfriend, Ben. Lucy’s precocious daughter, Elise, and Laura’s sassy 99-year old grandmother stole every scene for me. And I was stunned by how drastically my feelings toward Laura changed with her remarkable story arc. It was also fun getting to catch up with Monk and Mallory from Husbands and Lovers. This book gave our buddy read a lot to discuss, and I think it would make a great book club pick. I loved this well written, cleverly plotted, thought provoking book and can’t wait to recommend it to all of my friends! 5/5⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

[Silvia Kirkland · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars — I was hooked from the very first page! The plot kept me on my toes, the chemistry between the characters was easy to invest in, and the pirate treasure hunt gave the story a fun feel. The ending wasn’t quite enough for me to give it a full five stars, but it’s absolutely worth reading and one I’d definitely recommend!

[Isabel Gottlieb · Rating 1 out of 5]

I want 300 pages of my life back

[Christine M in Texas (stamperlady50) · Rating 5 out of 5]

When You Loved me
By: Beatriz Williams
Pub Date: June 23, 2026
Publisher: Ballantine Books

Williams always gives the reader a new, highly detailed, interesting novel which keeps my attention. Her new England novels always touch on a different era and story line.

Windward is a New England estate haunted with rumors about treasure. Lucy is a young widow who is trying to settle her father’s estate. She finds out quickly that the property is fraught with debt. Her crush in her early days, Ben has arrived at the estate.

Loyalty, friendship and love will be tested. I always look forward to her novels as I know I will devour them and set aside “real-life”.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you @randomhouse @ballantinebooks #partner for the #gifted finished copy to read and enjoy and @prhaudio #prhaudiopartner for the ALC!

Well this was quite the surprise!! I was looking for something that hooked me right away, so I messaged @me__alley to ask about this book because I thought she had read it. But she was like, “I haven’t but I’ll start it tonight if you want to start it tonight and we can buddy read” and then we buddy read it at nearly the exact same BREAK NECK pace over the next 25 hours. We finished within ten minutes of each other and were often on the same exact page. What a ride! And we both loved it! Honestly, a book that can get me to binge it THIS FAST is an automatic five stars.

This book was just so dang readable!! And it had a little bit of everything. Mystery. Intrigue. History. Pirates. Parenthood. Secrets. Treasure hunting. A Love story. Family drama. Football. An absolute perfect seven year old. Flashbacks. A propulsive plot. It was quite the genre-bender, honestly.

I did some of it on audio throughout the day and enjoyed both narrators immensely. If you prefer to consume books on that format, I highly recommend listening!

Now, the book isn’t without its faults. I’m not sure the cover or the title actually match the vibe of the book? Additionally, even though the spice was extremely brief there were some sentences that were very icky. But I’m willing to overlook its misgivings, because of just how bingeable the book was. I was completely lost in it and when I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it. It has been a WHILE since a book sunk its hooks in me like this.

All is well.

🔥🔥 Three *brief* open door scenes with some outside chatter

[anovelaccount (Kayla) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️ rounded up

Okay, I was not expecting to love this book as much as I did! If you are looking for a book that has a little of everything, please look no further. It would honestly be hard to summarize this book because SO MUCH happens, but it is very easy to follow and it never feels like there’s too much going on.

The first chapter starts with a bang and never slows down. I truly did not want to stop reading this! We have the current day timeline with Lucy, her hilarious daughter, some second chance romance, & a mystery that slowly develops over the course of the book after her father’s suspicious disappearance. There are also a few flashback scenes to help flesh out the characters’ history, and I felt these were important to get the whole picture of the drama that has followed them through the years.

We also get an additional timeline that takes place in 1717. I was initially unsure of these chapters, but I came to be just as fully invested with what happened with these characters of the past as I was with the ones in the present. The timelines all weave together so seamlessly as the story progresses, and the resulting story is so beautifully crafted and told.

There’s really so much I could say about this book! It’s so unique and well-developed, so now I immediately want to dive into Beatriz Williams’s backlist. This one would be a fabulous beach read! And to be clear, I gave this book 4.5 stars because there were a few minor things I couldn’t overlook, but just know that this book is basically a 5 star read in my heart!

[Sarah Weeks-Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps I don't have children because they'll never be Punkin?

Another masterpiece, 10/10. No notes. At this point, I'm moving to Winthrop Island (do Massachusetts Winthrop descents get a discount?)

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

SLIGHTLY more dead people/cancer than I was really prepared for given my life, but as ever, Beatriz Williams books are among the highlight of my reading years.

[Jackie Kestler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved! Three different timelines (present, 2012, 1717) and two different love triangles (Lucy/Ben/Laura; Hephzibah/Ramsey/Beulah). Such a great storyline with really likeable characters and the setting on this imaginary east coast island is perfect! The tension between Lucy and Ben is ::chef’s kiss:: and Punkin is an adorable, hilarious, and old soul who I’d love to meet in real life. Definitely appreciated the cameos of characters from Husbands and Lovers, which actually made me want to reread! Didn’t really understand how pirates and treasure would weave into the plot, but it all comes together beautifully and I was sucked in - excellent, creative storytelling!!

PS: authors note was really informative! Go Stanford haha

[Marie Brock · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️ But literally don’t ask me what happened with the pirates. I’ve got no clue.

[Lauren Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5-4.75 ⭐️

This is my first book by this author and I LOVED it! I loved the layers and the pirate tale that was woven in was so good would have loved even more of that. The past and the present woven together to build a family story was so well done. The writing is beautiful and when I put it down I couldn’t wait to pick it back up. I don’t really read much historical fiction and I loved this so much I have already requested some more from this author can’t wait to read her other books.

[Mary-Katherine Minnis · Rating 5 out of 5]

There was a lot going on between the timelines, the pirate treasure mystery, and the historical romance manuscript BUT I WAS GRIPPED!

A solid 4.5 star read and one you can recommend across the board to friends, your mom, a stranger!

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the past story. The present story was okay. Overall, good ending and glad to read it.

[Jillian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really disliked this book and felt like at 40% the writing went so downhill but I was already too far in to ditch it. All of the characters are so annoying, especially the little girl. Save yourself time and skip this one.

[The Bookish Elf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some houses hold grief the way a cold room holds damp. Windward, the crumbling Cooper estate at the private end of Winthrop Island, is one of them. When You Loved Me by Beatriz Williams opens on a funeral that is not quite a funeral, because there is no body to bury. Bud Cooper folded his clothes on the beach and walked into Long Island Sound a week before his estranged daughter was due to arrive, leaving Lucy to stand at the pulpit and try to eulogize a man who chased pirate gold his whole life and caught only debt.

Lucy is a widow and a teacher, raising a small, ferociously composed daughter named Punkin who has spent her whole life in Paris and treats a New England funeral like a Chanel runway. The two of them arrive to settle the estate, and the estate has plans of its own. There is a mountain of unpaid bills. There is a stubborn local legend about a wounded pirate and a fortune in silver buried somewhere on the grounds. And there, half-hidden in a pew at the back of the church, is Ben Ressler: the boy Lucy loved for two reckless weeks the summer she turned eighteen, now a disgraced former NFL safety hiding from the worst thing he ever did on a football field.

A Story Told in Three Tides

What gives this novel its architecture is the way it braids three timelines together, and how patiently it lets them find one another.

The present-day thread follows Lucy in first person, and her voice is the engine of the book. She is funny in the dry, self-deprecating way of someone who has learned to laugh so she does not weep, and clear-eyed about the genteel poverty that always set her family slightly apart from the yacht-club Peabodys next door. A second strand drops back to the summer of 2012, when teenage Lucy fell for Ben and quietly torched her friendship with Laura Peabody, who wanted him first. The third reaches all the way to the savage winter of 1717, told as excerpts from a story within the story, where a healer named Hephzibah shelters a half-dead pirate captain during the real historical calamity known as the Great Snow.

When the braid pulls tight, it is a pleasure to watch. The romance carries genuine warmth without sliding into syrup, and the contemporary mystery sharpens as Lucy begins to doubt that her father simply walked into the sea. The opening pages, narrated from inside Ben's helmet during the hit that ended everything, are some of the most physical and frightening writing Williams has put on a page. You feel the cold, the adrenaline, and then the awful stillness.

What the Novel Does Beautifully

A few strengths stand out clearly across all three timelines:

Punkin steals every room she enters. Precocious, French to her marrow, armed with sunglasses and an alarming vocabulary, she is the rare child character who feels invented from love rather than from a checklist.
The setting earns its keep. Winthrop Island in the off-season, all shuttered cottages and salt wind and old money keeping warm by gossip, is rendered with the kind of detail that makes you reach for a sweater.
Class is handled with a light, knowing hand. The Coopers belong and do not belong, and Williams notices every small humiliation without ever turning bitter.
Atonement is the real subject. Ben's guilt over a man he hurt mirrors the healer's centuries-old reckoning, and that quiet rhyme gives the book more weight than its breezy surface promises.
A word on the romance

This is a second-chance love story, and it knows the beats by heart. What keeps it from feeling rote is how much history Lucy and Ben drag behind them. Theirs is not a meet-cute; it is a wound that never closed, and the slow work of forgiveness, theirs and their own, is the most affecting thing here.

Where the Story Strains

A four-star novel is a very good novel with seams you can still see, and When You Loved Me by Beatriz Williams has a few worth naming.

The 1717 strand starts cold. Hephzibah's chapters open slowly, in a denser period register that sits oddly against Lucy's quick modern wit. Early on, the jumps can feel abrupt, and some readers will be tempted to hurry back to the present. The historical thread does grow more gripping as it goes, but it asks for patience first.
The late pivot toward suspense. The book begins as a tender literary romance and shifts, in its back half, into something closer to a thriller. The turn is effective, yet the change in temperature is noticeable, and a reader who came purely for the love story may feel the floor tilt.
A tidy landing. Without giving anything away, the convergence of past and present arrives a touch neatly. The final reveals are satisfying, though the seams that hold them together are visible if you look.
A crowded universe. Returning fans will delight in the familiar island families, but newcomers may need a beat to sort out who is who.
Voice, Atmosphere, and Craft

Williams has always been a stylist, and her trademarks are all present: a first-person heroine who could carry a one-woman show, period passages stitched from real research, and a structure that trusts the reader to hold several threads at once. The contemporary half crackles. The 2012 flashbacks ache with the specific cruelty of teenage friendship. The colonial sections, once they warm up, deliver a survival story with real stakes. Reading When You Loved Me by Beatriz Williams, you sense an author confident enough to make football, piracy, grief, and first love share the same roof, and mostly to make them fit.

Final Word

When You Loved Me by Beatriz Williams is a generous, big-hearted novel that occasionally reaches farther than its grasp. The romance is warm, the heroine is wonderful company, the island is a character in its own right, and the meditation on forgiveness lingers past the last page. It stumbles slightly in the cold open of its oldest timeline and in a finish that ties off a little too cleanly. Even so, the pleasures outweigh the flaws by a comfortable margin. For fans of the author, it is essential. For newcomers, it is a warm, well-built door into one of the most welcoming worlds in contemporary historical fiction.

[Alli Mowrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐ | 1.5🌶️A beautifully layered historical mystery that balances romance, family secrets, and pirate lore in a way that completely captivated me.

🕰️ Historical Fiction
⏳ Multiple Timelines
💞 Second Chance
🗺️ Treasure Hunt
🚫 Forbidden Romance
🏝️ Coastal/New England Setting

Review:
Like many of Beatriz Williams's novels, this is a captivating historical fiction with multiple timelines, romance at every turn, and a mystery that pulls everything together. I was completely engrossed from start to finish, and I actually think I enjoyed this even more than Husbands & Lovers (which I loved!), which exists in the same universe and is lauded as one of her best books.

In the present day, widowed single mother Lucy returns to Winthrop Island with her daughter, Elise ("Punkin"), after the presumed death of her estranged father. She hasn't been back since she was 17, when she fell in love with college football star Ben Ressler, and now she's unexpectedly face-to-face with him again. At the same time, she's trying to make sense of her father's mysterious death. Was it intentional? Why was there no body? And was his lifelong search for the legendary pirate treasure somehow connected to what happened?

As Lucy begins searching for answers, Punkin quickly becomes fascinated by the island's pirate lore, drawing Lucy and Ben into the mystery alongside her. Interwoven with the present-day story are two additional timelines: the summer of 2012, when teenage Lucy and Ben first fell in love despite every reason not to, and journal entries from 1716 that reveal the story of Hephzibah and the pirate Ned Ramsay—the very history Lucy's father believed held the key to finding the lost treasure.

Lucy and Ben's romance—both past and present—was easily my favorite part of the book. Their chemistry felt effortless, and I loved watching their relationship unfold across two different stages of life. The treasure hunt added a compelling layer of mystery that kept me turning the pages, and as always, Beatriz Williams does an incredible job weaving parallels between characters across centuries. Those thematic connections are one of my favorite aspects of her writing.

The only place the pacing slowed for me was the 1716 storyline. At times it felt a bit removed from the main narrative, but once Hephzibah and Ned's romance took center stage, I became much more invested. In the end, that timeline proved essential, and the payoff made the slower sections worthwhile.

If I have one criticism, it's that I wish Lucy had been developed just a little more as an individual. We understand how devoted she is as a mother and we get glimpses of her complicated relationship with her father, but I wanted a deeper understanding of who she is outside of those relationships. Her mother's multiple marriages, for example, seem like they would have had a profound impact on her, yet that aspect of her life is only lightly explored. By comparison, Ben felt incredibly well developed. His backstory, the aftermath of his football injury, and the path that ultimately led him to coaching all combined to create a fully realized character whose motivations always made sense.

I also loved how the novel handled Laura's storyline. I didn't anticipate the twist surrounding her return, and it added so much emotional complexity to the second-chance romance. Rather than creating unnecessary drama, it made every character feel more human and gave Ben and Lucy's reunion even greater emotional weight. Their romance is a slow burn with just a touch of spice in the later chapters, but it's the emotional depth that really stands out.

Some of my favorite parts:

-Punkin was absolutely adorable. She brought so much heart, humor, and curiosity to the story
- The pirate treasure mystery kept me completely invested
- Hephzibah and Ned's romance was surprisingly compelling
- Lucy and Ben's second-chance romance was beautifully written
- Laura's character arc and the way her story ultimately unfolded
- Mrs. Peabody, who stole nearly every scene she was in with her wisdom, humor, & meddling
- Ben's journey after his football career ended and the life he built afterward

Overall, this was a beautifully layered novel that blends romance, mystery, history, and family drama with Beatriz Williams's signature interconnected storytelling. If you enjoy sweeping historical fiction with richly woven timelines, emotional second-chance romance, and a touch of adventure, I highly recommend this one.

[Lisa Leone-campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

When You Loved Me is not just one, but two amazing love stories about two very strong women. Separated by centuries, yet intertwined by sorrow, death, mystery and most important forgiveness and love the story will grab your heart from the first page.

Lucy Cooper comes home from England with her young daughter Elise to unfortunately bury her father and settle his estate. As she looks over the dilapidated mansion she use to call home, she herself a recent widow can hardly believe her father is gone. She is also shocked at the way he died. By going into the ocean near their home on Winthrop Island and never coming out.

For her whole life, her father had been obsessed with a story passed down about a buried hidden pirate treasure somewhere on the land of their estate. He was so preoccupied he let everything in his life come second. The reason Lucy's mother left him, and they both moved to England. But she was lucky. She got to spend summers with him and for that she will be forever grateful.

After the funeral, Lucy discovers her father was in debt. So much so there is no way she can pay it off, let alone be able to fix everything in the house which needs to be taken care of before she perhaps must sell. She understands his passion was this absurd pirate treasure and that is what he deemed most important. For years all she kept hearing was he was so close to the discovery.

But Lucy is also out of sorts as she has discovered her first love, Ben Ressler is living on the property of her ex best friend Laura Peabody. She thought he was going into football. The last she saw him was actually the worst heartbreak of her life other than the killing of her daughter's father.

Then there is her brilliant young daughter who has spunk and speaks her mind. She truly believes the pirate story and has herself fallen in love with their neighbor, Ben Ressler much to Lucy's chagrin.

But not everything is as it seems. A missing laptop, a fire in the house, and someone impersonating her. Why?

The other story comes in the form of a diary of a woman from 1717 named Hephzibah and how her family are invaded by pirates and one who is very sick comes to stay with them. And then they must fight a terrible winter called Great Snow of the Storm.

As the two stories become linked, Lucy must grapple with her past, her late father's life and trying to put her love for Ben to bed, so to speak. And when the past and present finally collide well, that's for you to dig into!

Thank you #NetGalley #BallentineBooks #BeatrizWilliams #WhenYouLovedMe for the advanced copy.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Ballantine for the gifted physical ARC and PRH Audio for the advance listening copy. All opinions are my own.

Oh, how I love visiting Winthrop Island! I grab my snack and settle in knowing full well Beatriz Williams will make the trip worthwhile. WHEN YOU LOVED ME is a five star reading experience.

Some books grab readers with a first line hook. This book had me in a chokehold with one of the best first chapters I’ve ever read. EVER. No spoilers, but I promise you will be fully in the story by the time that first chapter ends. Chapter One alone is reason enough to listen to the audiobook. It is executed to perfection.

WHEN YOU LOVED ME is rich with well developed, messy, all too human characters and a tremendous sense of place. The story is told in alternating timelines between the present day, a decade earlier, and the island’s early days when pirates washed up on the coast. Lucy is back on Winthrop Island with her young daughter, Elise, after her father’s disappearance. She is surprised to find his estate a mess and her first love back in residence on the island. The key to salvaging her childhood home might just lie in the copious pile of research her dad left related to his obsession with pirate treasure rumored to be buried on their property.

Williams’s writing is genius. As the storylines converge, she ties the resolution together powerfully such that I had a visceral reaction. I may have cheered out loud. Actually, I did. She also gives the reader one of the best character redemption arcs in recent memory. While the plot and pacing are excellent, it’s the characters that steal the show. From 7-year-old Elise to 99-year-old Mrs. Peabody to the old friends who stop by to visit, the early residents of Winthrop Island, and the pirates who come ashore in a storm, these characters are richly hued and multi dimensional. But it’s Ben who had me swooning. Swooning. And, of course, Winthrop Island is a character in itself.

I enthusiastically recommend the audio version of this book; either alone or in tandem with a physical copy. The narration is performed by Sarah Mollo-Christensen (Lucy), Christian Leatherman (Ben), and Kate Walsh (Hephzibah), and they contribute stellar performances. Their distinct voices make it easy to stay present in the story.

This should be one of the most talked about books of the summer. Expect to see it everywhere. It is THAT good.