Xavier Darling, the distant, British owner of the newly-renovated hotel, wants the hotel to earn an elusive five-key rating from notoriously-picky travel journalist Shelly Carpenter. This study guide uses the Hodder & Stoughton Kindle edition, published in 2022.įinding herself heartbroken after catching her long-term boyfriend and work collaborator, JJ O’Malley, exchanging sexually-explicit messages with another employee, Lizbet Keaton throws herself into the challenge of becoming General Manager of The Hotel Nantucket. “ The Hotel Nantucket.” Kirkus Reviews, 2022). On the other hand, Elin Hilderbrand herself wrote that Nantucket could “hardly be more fun than this book” and praised it for being the type of beach read that she does best (Hilderbrand, Elin. “ Beachy, Sunkissed Novels Set on Nantucket and Cape Cod”, The New York Times, 2022).

New York Times journalist Michelle Ruiz observed that “as a travelogue, the novel is exquisite, transporting you ‘on island,’ as ACK lingo goes”, however, she would have also appreciated a similar “richness in the characters and their stories,” which often felt too fleetingly described (Ruiz, Michelle. The Hotel Nantucket is a bestseller that received mixed reviews. Unlike some of her contemporaries, Hilderbrand, who is a fixture on Nantucket Island where she has summered since childhood, does not mind being branded a beach-read writer. While beach reads are often dismissed as low-brow, their largely apolitical nature appeals to people across the political divide and garners a wide spectrum of readers. According to Heaney, Hilderbrand mastered the beach-read formula, which “was meant to signal a light, fun, breezy read, high on interpersonal drama, low(-ish) on plot” (Heaney). “ How Elin Hilderbrand Became the ‘Queen of Beach Reads’.” New York Magazine, 2019). In 2019, New York Magazine journalist Katie Heaney dubbed Hilderbrand “the Queen of beach reads” (Heaney, Katie. The Hotel Nantucket (2022) is American writer Elin Hilderbrand’s 28th book.

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