REVIEW: THE HOTEL NANTUCKET, BY 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.

 

From the first pages of The Hotel Nantucket, the reader is swept away by the characters, their stories, and the looming presence of the hotel itself. Not to mention the essence of the ghostly Grace.

I was rooting for several of the characters, especially Lisbet and Edie. As I kept turning the pages, I loved discovering the depths of them all. Even the ones I didn’t really like at first, like Allessandra.

The setting was lovely and as the renovations brought the old hotel back to a thing of beauty, I could feel the joy of them all. The inspiration of turning the old place into something special was not to be overlooked.

Romances flourished as well, even for those who were trying to overcome past disappointments. In the final pages, just when we thought we might have lost the beautiful hotel, something happened to turn things around. Five stars.

***