Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Winter Storms: Book Three in the Winter Series

Winter Storms concludes a warm-hearted trilogy about a complicated Nantucket family whose loyalties and love run deep.

The Quinns of Nantucket reunite again in the final installment of the Winter Street series. As in Winter Street and Winter StrollElin Hilderbrand juggles an ensemble cast in a holiday setting. This time, however, the plot is structured amid four seasons, culminating at Christmas. 

Winter Storms launches in the spring. Family patriarch Kelley Quinn--a twice-married father of four adult children and the owner of the Winter Street Inn in Nantucket--is battling prostate cancer. He offers the inn for the wedding of his first wife, Margaret--a TV journalist and mother to three of the children--who has decided to remarry. Before the family convenes for the summer nuptials, Margaret and daughter Ava take a trip together, which complicates Ava's continued romantic woes. Patrick--the oldest child, having served prison time for insider trading--resumes life with his stressed, over-achieving wife, a closeted prescription drug addict. Kevin--the dithering middle child--opens a beachfront food venue that changes the dynamic with his long-term girlfriend. Throughout the seasons, Bart--a soldier stationed in Afghanistan, the son of Kelley and his second wife--remains missing in action. 

As each of the Quinn children comes to terms with personal dilemmas, Kelley reflects on his life. And when a nor'easter threatens to disrupt big celebratory plans for Christmas, the tightknit Quinns demonstrate what they mean to each other. Hilderbrand's trilogy reaches a well-resolved conclusion infused with a perfect mix of love, tears and joy.

**A quote from my review (above) was selected as a featured headline in an ad for this novel in The New York Times Book Review**
Little, Brown and Company, $26.00, Hardcover, 9780316261173, 256 pp
Publication Date: October 4, 2016
To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE
NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (October 11, 2016), link HERE