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Book Summary and Reviews of The Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hilderbrand

The Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hilderbrand

The Hotel Nantucket

by Elin Hilderbrand

  • Published:
  • Feb 2023, 416 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Check into a storied Nantucket hotel for a summer of scandal in this immensely satisfying page turner from "the queen of beach reads" (New York Magazine) and #1 New York Times bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand.

Fresh off a bad breakup with a longtime boyfriend, Nantucket sweetheart Lizbet Keaton is desperately seeking a second act. When she's named the new general manager of the Hotel Nantucket, a once Gilded Age gem turned abandoned eyesore, she hopes that her local expertise and charismatic staff can win the favor of their new London billionaire owner, Xavier Darling, as well as that of Shelly Carpenter, the wildly popular Instagram tastemaker who can help put them back on the map. And while the Hotel Nantucket appears to be a blissful paradise, complete with a celebrity chef-run restaurant and an idyllic wellness center, there's a lot of drama behind closed doors. The staff (and guests) have complicated pasts, and the hotel can't seem to overcome the bad reputation it earned in 1922 when a tragic fire killed nineteen-year-old chambermaid Grace Hadley. With Grace gleefully haunting the halls, a staff harboring all kinds of secrets, and Lizbet's own romantic uncertainty, is the Hotel Nantucket destined for success or doom?  

Filled with the emotional depth and multiple points of view that characterize Hilderbrand's novels (The Blue Bistro, Golden Girl) as well as an added dash of Roaring Twenties history, The Hotel Nantucket offers something for everyone in this compelling summer drama. 

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Bring on the fresh-baked gougères and the hydrangea-blue cashmere throws: A classic fictional setting—the grand hotel—gets the Hilderbrand treatment. The beloved beach novelist's 28th book is another tour de force...Honestly, who needs Nantucket. It could hardly be more fun than this book." ―Kirkus Reviews

"It doesn't feel like summer unless I read an Elin Hilderbrand book, which I've done every year for almost a decade....They're full of secrets and romantic drama and beaches. I've read my fair share of novels involving magic and dragons, but fancy New England island living often feels more fantastical to me than anything from George R.R. Martin." ―The New York Times

"The Hotel Nantucket has lots to love: great food, juicy gossip, secrets and scandals, and that special something that Hilderbrand delivers novel after novel." ―Business Insider

"Hilderbrand is the absolute queen of the beach reads, and her latest offering is dishy and fun, as a classic Nantucket hotel attempts to reinvent itself with a new billionaire owner. It might look glamorous on the outside, but behind closed doors, there is plenty of dysfunction among the staff, drama on the guest side, and a bad reputation the place can't shake from a tragic fire in 1922." ―New York Post

"Hilderbrand, who has perfected the romantic beach read, returns with a summer scandal at a Nantucket hotel, where fresh off a bad breakup, general manager Lizbet Keaton struggles to revive the storied but struggling business–and to write her own second act." ―USA Today

This information about The Hotel Nantucket was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Elin Hilderbrand Author Biography

Elin Hilderbrand is the author of twenty-eight novels, including The Hotel Nantucket. She is a proud 1991 graduate of Johns Hopkins University where she majored in Writing Seminars. In her senior year at Hopkins, Elin had her first short story, "Misdirection," accepted for publication in Seventeen Magazine.

After a short stint working in publishing and teaching in New York City, she moved to Nantucket permanently in 1994. She attended the University of Iowa writers workshop and earned her MFA in 1998, and published her first novel, The Beach Club, in the summer of 2000. Her 2019 novel, Summer of "69 SUMMER OF '69 was her first novel to debut at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. She is the mother of three children and loves riding the Peloton, cooking, and going to the beach. She...

... Full Biography
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