After a tragic fire in 1922 that killed 19-year-old chambermaid Grace Hadley, The Hotel Nantucket descended from a gilded age gem to a mediocre budget-friendly lodge to an abandoned eyesore—until it's purchased and renovated top to bottom by London billionaire Xavier Darling. Xavier hires Nantucket sweetheart Lizbet Keaton as his general manager, and Lizbet, in turn, pulls together a charismatic if inexperienced staff who shares the vision of turning the fate of the hotel around. They face challenges in getting along with one another (and with the guests), in overcoming the hotel's bad reputation, and in surviving the (mostly) harmless shenanigans of Grace Hadley herself—who won't stop haunting the hotel until her murder is acknowledged.
... brings readers an exciting, multi-plotted, genre-bending drama ... Plotlines about scandalous affairs, extortion, assault and sordid pasts enliven Hilderbrand's obvious appreciation for the ins and outs of the hotel industry and for Nantucket culture. Readers in search of page-turning escapist fiction will be immensely intrigued by checking into The Hotel Nantucket and seeing all it has to offer.
... delightful ... Hilderbrand’s Nantucket is a fantasy version of a real place: names and descriptions can be over-the-top, but they help form the culture and setting she is describing ... Make no mistake about it: Elin Hilderbrand is having fun. The Hotel Nantucket is a detail-rich and amusing page-turner. While it is easy to dismiss the book as a 'beach read,' to do so ignores the fact that the term just means entertaining, popular and published during the warm months. Hilderbrand has crafted a tightly plotted and enjoyable story of a diverse group of people coming together for a shared purpose under some extraordinary circumstances. Whether you are on the beach or elsewhere, this promises to be a satisfying and charming novel.
The Hotel Nantucket, by Elin Hilderbrand...tries mightily to be a beach read...[and is] likely to be successful as such ... But [it] neither captured my heart or attained that overused marketing promise of 'unputdownability' ... Hilderbrand revels in the granular details of the Matouk-sheet-swathed lodging, which boasts showers thoughtfully tiled in oyster shells and complimentary minibars stuffed with bluefish pâté. The author sets sumptuous scenes ... I only wished for the same richness in the characters and their stories ... Hilderbrand’s spiky, astute observations...are too fleeting ... High stakes are heaped upon their secrets ... But their truths, once revealed, don’t deliver on the hype. Stylistically, Hilderbrand...overdo[es] it on distracting, dated internet-y slang...that barely survived a few quick digital eras, much less the glacial pace of publishing.
