The Optimists

A witty, poignant novel about a stand-out 8^th Grade English teacher who traces the ascendency of a notably gifted student and how his life affected hers--and vice versa. 

Teachers--and the gifts they bring to their students and vice versa--reside at the center of The Optimists. This eccentric, character-driven story is written by Brian Platzer (Bed-Stye is Burning; The Body Politic), who based his protagonist on a real-life teacher and mentor who changed his own life. 

Rod Keating was once a dedicated, creatively inventive, inspiring and joke-telling 8th grade English teacher at St. George Episcopal School in Lower Manhattan. Clever and perceptive--a real stand-out with the students--Mr. Keating always dreamed big. However, when he suddenly becomes infirm at the age of 70, he commits to writing a novel about his life—namely his teaching career and the impact of one very gifted (yet often troubled) student, Clara Hightower. Mr. Keating saw something special in Clara when they first met in the late 1980s. He watched her develop from a bright, conniving child, accelerate academically in high school, and witnessed her success in becoming a star of Silicon Valley, an animal rights activist, and finally, a terrorist. 

A staggered timeline and brisk pacing mark Platzer’s lively, stream-of-conscious-style narrative. A cast of well-drawn, off-beat supporting players deepen the tender wit, heart, and intimacy of this poignant, original story that probes the meaning of life and death and how ordinary people often connect in extraordinary ways.

The Optimists by Brian Platzer

Little, Brown and Company, $29.00 hardcover, 978-0316576956, 304 pages

Publication Date: February 24, 2016

To order this book on Bookshop.org, link HERE

 

Learn more about Brian Platzer HERE

 

Swan Song

A burned down mansion and a missing young woman permeate the riveting finale of Elin Hilderbrand’s glitzy Nantucket series of novels.

With high drama and a boatload of mystery, Elin Hilderbrand (The Five Star Weekend, Golden Girl, The Perfect Couple) reels in the stunning final installment in her Nantucket-based series of novels. Readers will savor Swan Song, as it nostalgically brings back characters from former books and adds a host of dynamic new ones.

 

When enigmatic, middle-aged, island newcomers, Bull and Leslee Richardson--a “hot commodity” power couple--purchase a lavish, 22-million-dollar oceanfront property, they enlist the help of Colleen “Coco” Coyle, an aspiring screenwriter in need of a job. Coco serves as their “personal concierge,” assisting their quest to integrate into island society culture. Coco is befriended by Kacy—a dedicated nurse from California who recently broke up with her girlfriend. She returns home to visit her Police Chief father, Ed Kapenash, who has suffered some health challenges and is now facing retirement.

 

When the Richardson mansion mysteriously burns down and Coco goes missing on the same day, many questions are suddenly raised. A police investigation coupled with town intrigue slowly starts to reveal the true identity of the Richardsons and their modus operandi. In doing so, spicy details are also revealed regarding those in their orbit. This includes socially connected friends, a real estate agent, an architect, a boat captain, sommelier, a masseuse and others.

 

Romance and island glitz infuse Hilderbrand’s spellbinding 30^th novel that packs a juicy, suspenseful wallop for devoted readers of her last 29 books and rare latecomers to the captivating Hilderbrand ‘brand.’

 

Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand

Little, Brown and Company / Hachette Book Group, $30.00 hardcover, 9780316258876, 384 pages

Publishing Date: June 11, 2024

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review as originally published on Shelf Awareness (July 5, 2024), link HERE 

The Five-Star Weekend

A juicy story about a widowed food blogger who invites four women from different eras of her life to a Nantucket weekend getaway.

Elin Hilderbrand’s storytelling is in top form with The Five-Star Weekend, an intricately plotted, juicy novel about a popular, internet food blogger who hosts a girls’ weekend of food, fun, and togetherness.

 

After Hollis Shaw’s husband of 23-years dies in a car crash, the affable food blogging sensation tries to stabilize her life by inviting four women from different phases of her life to her picturesque home in Nantucket. The guests includes Tatum McKenzie, a local islander; Hollis’s friend since they were teenagers. Dru-Ann Jones, Hollis’s college roommate, who is now a premiere sports’ agent for professional female athletes. Brooke Kirtley, a friend from the prime of Hollis’s life—a woman instrumental in helping Hollis through the profundity of her grief. And Gigi Ling, a pilot from Atlanta, Georgia, whom Hollis has never met—the two have become online friends via Hollis’s blog. Hollis also invites her rebellious daughter, Caroline, with whom she shares a contentious relationship—one she’d really like to heal. As a film student at NYU, Hollis pays Caroline to attend the weekend, encouraging her daughter to film the event.

 

Hilderbrand (The Hotel Nantucket) delivers a five-star read that beautifully traces the essence of contemporary women and the complexities of their lives. Readers will be fascinated by the surprising drama of bringing--and braiding--together such disparate personalities. In the end, it’s not just Hollis at a crossroads. Each woman faces trials, challenges, and changes in which readers will identify and be eager to invest in.

 

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand

Little, Brown and Company, $30.00 hardcover, 9780316258777, 384 pages, Publishing Date: June 13, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, 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 (June 16, 2023), link HERE

Golden Girl

A beautifully drawn novel about a middle-aged woman, killed in a hit-and-run accident, who monitors life as it goes on without her.

Prolific novelist Elin Hilderbrand (28 Summers) ponders death, grief and the hereafter in the beautifully uplifting Golden Girl.

 

As the book commences, Vivi Howe--successful author of 13 novels and a 51-year-old divorced mother of three--dies in a hit-and-run accident near her home on Nantucket Island. Once Vivi's soul ascends from Earth, she is assigned a spirit guide, Martha, who allows her to view one last summer as life goes on without her for her three adult children, their father (her ex), her best friend and an old flame. As Vivi monitors from afar, she can give three "nudges" to alter the shape of events as they unfold in the lives of those she's left behind.

 

What ensues is an emotionally powerful story largely centered on Vivi's three children, all named for authors. Willa, the oldest, is married and pregnant again after suffering two miscarriages. When a long-lost beau of Vivi surfaces, Willa becomes intrigued to learn more about the life her mother led--and the secrets she kept--before marriage and family. Beautiful, rebellious middle child Carson gets swept up in substance abuse and makes histrionic bad choices. And Leo, an angsty high school senior about to start college, faces romantic turmoil. Threaded throughout the story is an ongoing investigation into who might've killed their mother.

 

Faithful readers have come to depend on Hilderbrand's top-notch escapist fiction that puts lively, dramatic new spins on families challenged by love and loss. Golden Girl will exceed their expectations.

 

Golden Girl: A Novel by Elin Hilderbrand

Little, Brown and Company, $29.00 Hardcover, 9780316420082, 384 pages

Publication Date: June 1, 2021

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 (June 4, 2021), link HERE 

28 Summers

Star-crossed soulmates rekindle their romance, love and perpetual loyalty one weekend every year--for 28 years.

Elin Hilderbrand tugs on readers' heartstrings with great aplomb. In 28 Summers, she begins at the end of a long-term, unconventional romance and weaves the captivating story of star-crossed lovers through 28 years of history. 

The 1978 movie Same Time, Next Year--an American romantic-comedy-drama--serves as inspiration to the structure of the story and to main characters Mallory Blessing and Jake McCloud, who are fans of the film. Mallory and Jake developed an easy, flirtatious camaraderie over the phone while Jake and Cooper, Mallory's brother, roomed together at college. The two meet face-to-face only in 1993, while in their 20s--after Mallory inherits a Nantucket beach house from her aunt. Mallory plays host to soon-to-be-married Cooper and his friends, who gather on the island for his bachelor party on Labor Day weekend. The gathering goes bust on many levels, but Mallory and Jake forge an intimate bond--a soulmate connection--amid the mayhem and vow that every year, on Labor Day weekend, they should meet up again, just like in the iconic film.

For the next 28 years, the couple fulfills their pact, having contact with each other for only one weekend annually, where they secretly rekindle their romance and share the travails of their private lives--the challenges and sacrifices of dating and marriage to other people, parenthood and career pursuits. Careful plotting binds this deeply moving, powerful story. Hilderbrand (Summer of 69; The Perfect Couple) successfully entwines a host of surprising twists where multi-faceted characters become ensnared in thought-provoking romantic dilemmas.

28 Summers: A Novel by Elin Hilderbrand
Little, Brown and Company, $28.00 Hardcover, 9780316420044, 432 pages
Publication Date: June 16, 2020
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 (June 19, 2020), link HERE

Summer of '69

One uncertain summer on Nantucket Island changes the lives and loves of every member of an extended family.

Elin Hilderbrand (The Perfect Couple) dips into historical fiction, setting Summer of '69 in the era of the Vietnam War and Woodstock, a landmark moon landing and the scandal of Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddick car accident.

With history playing out, the Foley-Levin family of the greater Boston Area had planned to spend another summer at "All's Well," the Nantucket home of Exalta Nichols, the family matriarch. This year, however, the family is splintered, everyone facing the uncertainty of personal challenges: Kate--Exalta's widowed, remarried daughter and mother of three adult children of her own--is worried sick about 19-year-old Tiger, who fights for his country and his life after he's drafted into the Vietnam War. Rebellious Kirby is a hardworking 21-year-old; the free spirit and civil rights activist grapples with a taboo love and bristles against the ramifications of the Kennedy scandal. Blair, a 24-year-old intellectual, feels neglected as she endures a difficult pregnancy with twins while her husband is wrapped up, manning Mission Control for NASA. Jessie--the only offspring of Kate and her second husband, David, a lawyer--is a sensitive, love-sick 12-year-old swept up in family drama, preteen angst and the judgments of her elitist grandmother. 

Hilderbrand weaves the secret struggles, weaknesses and strengths of her well-developed cast into a rich tapestry. Hot-button issues--classism, racism, anti-Semitism, abortion, women's rights and the polarization of war--add resonant depth to Hilderbrand's trademark Cape Cod Islands setting and well-plotted multiple storylines. Once again, Hilderbrand shines, continuing to stretch her literary range with great success.

The Summer of ‘69 by Elin Hilderbrand

Little, Brown and Company, $28.00 Hardcover,  9780316420013, 432 pages

Publication Date: June 18, 2019

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 (June 21, 2019), link HERE

The Perfect Couple

Turmoil erupts at a posh Nantucket beachfront estate when a member of a wedding party is found dead on the morning of the nuptials.

In The Perfect Couple, Elin Hilderbrand (Winter Storms) dishes up a mysterious and superbly crafted whodunit, wrapping it around a story of domestic bliss gone awry.

As is her trademark, Hilderbrand sets her novel in Nantucket--assembling a large cast of characters who gather on the island for the sultry July wedding of 20-somethings Celeste Otis and Benjamin Winbury. Celeste is a shy, down-to-earth, middle-class zoologist whose parents have what she considers the perfect marriage. Her caring and attentive, well-to-do businessman fiancé, Benji, is the offspring of a successful mystery novelist mother and a notoriously philandering father. With Celeste's mother battling cancer, the Winburys generously offer to host the event at their posh beachfront estate, Summerland. But on the morning of the wedding, the body of the maid of honor--the bride's best friend--is found floating in the surf. Was her death accidental or the result of foul play?

Hilderbrand peels back layers of her suspenseful story by tracing the details of a suspected murder investigation, chronicling Benji and Celeste's relationship and revealing the hidden lives and agendas of others. As the Nantucket chief of police probes wedding attendees for answers, the integrity of many comes into question, along with Celeste's true feelings for her husband-to-be. A rapidly snowballing plot shifts suspicions as Hilderbrand displays a riveting grasp on insidious domestic rivalries and the secrets embedded in the human heart that can lead to unexpected, shattering consequences.  

The Perfect Couple: A Novel by Elin Hilderbrand

Little Brown and Company, $28.00 Hardcover, 9780316375269, 480 pages

Publication Date: June 19, 2018

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 (July 13, 2018), link HERE

Last Girl Before Freeway

An intimate, enlightening and entertaining biography of comedic icon Joan Rivers.

Leslie Bennetts (The Feminine Mistake) explores the peaks and valleys in the life of Joan Rivers, the heralded, often outrageous comic who paved the way for other women in show business. Rivers was an "insatiable overachiever" who defied her parents' expectations for a traditional life and relentlessly pursued a comedy career despite a long list of naysayers who felt Rivers lacked talent. She wanted "to make people laugh so she could feel loved in return." With fearless courage, Rivers battled her way to the top, plummeted time and time again and forged comebacks on ever grander scales.

Drawing from interviews with friends, fellow comics, rivals and Rivers's own words, the narrative probes the comic's insecurities, her tastes in decorating and entertaining, her love life and often contentious marriage, her fiery relationship with her daughter, her unmerciful ribbing of Elizabeth Taylor, and her many plastic surgeries. Rivers's rift with Johnny Carson precipitated the devastating heartbreak of midlife catastrophes, which inspired her to reinvent herself completely. Insightful, entertaining anecdotes bolster--and often dispel--stories manufactured by Rivers herself, which furthered a 60-year career that included an Emmy and a Grammy Award, a Tony nomination, reality TV programs, bestselling books and a successful QVC clothing and jewelry line. Beyond building a billion-dollar brand, Rivers generously lent her support to AIDS patients and many others. This fascinating, well-researched portrait of a comedic legend--a "vastly influential trailblazer" and "business powerhouse"--will appeal to Rivers's fans and also earn her new ones. 

Last Girl Before Freeway: The Life, Love, Losses, and Liberation of Joan Rivers by Leslie Bennetts

Little,Brown & Company, $28.00 Hardcover, 9780316261302, 432 pages

Publication Date: September 27, 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 (November 15, 2016), link HERE 

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 Stroll, Elin 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**

Winter Storms: Winter Street Book Three by Elin Hilderbrand

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

Today Will Be Different

A restless wife and mother tries to reboot her life only to have her quest go awry.

What does a restless, middle-aged wife and mother--a graphic artist and renowned animator of a legendary cartoon--have in common with a Catholic-turned-atheist hand surgeon to the stars; a makeup-wearing third grader named Timby, who got his name from an autocorrect spelling of the name Timothy; a frustrated poet who works at Costco; and a dog named Yo-Yo? They are the cast of quirky characters created by Maria Semple (Where'd You Go, Bernadette?) in her comic third novel, Today Will Be Different. 

Semple sets Today Will Be Different in the supposed "least religious city in America," Seattle, where scatterbrained, middle-aged Eleanor Flood--resettled from New York--narrates her angst. She feels stalled in her life, unfulfilled and failing those she loves. She wakes one morning and vows, determinedly, to live in the moment and be her "best self." As on any other day, she makes breakfast for her doctor husband and drops Timby off at his progressive, politically correct elementary school before going to her weekly private poetry lesson. But Eleanor's noble quest to reinvigorate her life goes awry when, during the course of one day, she's faced with a string of mishaps--starting with Timby faking a sickness at school--which snowballs when she comes face-to-face with a former employee, an "ingratiating wannabe... sweaty ass-kisser" she fired 10 years earlier, who is now a famous, accomplished artist. 

With a strong narrative voice, fast pace and her signature wit, Semple cleverly spins another raucously funny story wound around deeper implications about the unexpected ways life teaches us to find meaning.

Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple

Little, Brown and Company, $27.00 Hardcover, 978-0316403436, 272 pp

Publication Date: October 4, 2016

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, click 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 18, 2016), link HERE