Holly Shaw is a popular food blogger. Most of the women in America want to be her or be her friend, especially the women from her hometown in Nantucket. She is married to Matthew, a surgeon and they have a daughter, Caroline. Holly and Matthew’s marriage has been strained as her blogging popularity rose. One morning as Matthew heads out for a conference, he gets into an accident and dies.
Holly gets the idea to host a weekend with four of her best friends from different phases of her life. She also enlists her daughter, Caroline a film major to film the weekend in the hopes of fixing their fractured relationship. And so we meet Tatum, Dru-Ann, Brooke and Holly’s most recent friend who she met online, Gigi, each woman dealing with something major in their life.
I’m new to Elin Hilderbrand and this is only my second book of hers. Hilderbrand writes what could be called beachy/thriller reads all based in Nantucket. With this, she is 2 for 2 for me as I quite enjoyed this one. Listen, I don’t know how realistic to be able to get old and new friends alike at the drop of a hat but hey, let’s suspend imagination necause I do think it’s actually an interesting idea as you never know what you will get when you mix your friends together.
Hilderbrand wrote this book in great detail and you can tell she did her research. She knows her hometown well so not that but the detail in Holly’s dishes and just as a host was top notch. She did a good job making each character their own and they didn’t feel like they were fillers. Even in weaving their relationships, every interaction felt natural and not forced.
Even though the book starts with a death, I found this to be an easy and enjoyable read. In a weird way, it made me nostalgic and made me think back on my friendships over the years. Hilderbrand is supposed to be retiring this year and since this is just my second book of hers, I still have a lot of catching up to do. I definitely will be reaching for her titles in the future.
Taynement
TwoNightStands 