Huge Giveaway! "Summerland" by Elin Hilderbrand ~Nantucket Lost

Summary: 

Publishers Weekly

Nantucket Island’s year-round residents are shaken when a car crash claims the life of driver Penny Alistair, a vibrant and popular high school student, and leaves her twin brother, Hobby, in a coma. The other passengers, Penny’s boyfriend Jake and their friend Demeter, each have secrets, and everyone is touched by the tragedy, in fact, practically everyone on the island feels some responsibility for the accident. What did Demeter, who had been drinking, divulge to Penny on the beach that night? Was it Jake’s indiscretion after the cast party for the high school’s production of Grease, or Hobby’s just before prom? Was it the newspaper publisher’s affair, or Penny’s knowledge of his wife’s depression after the loss of her infant son? Each character’s guilt rubs them raw with worry. The sparks that this story throws out becomes a current that circles the agitated kids and their parents, electrifying the atmosphere as they grapple with what happened. Hilderbrand (Silver Girl) has a gift for building tension, and the reader will be willing to do just about anything to discover the real reason why Penny would drive herself, her brother, and her boyfriend over an embankment into oblivion.

Particulars of the book :
Published by Regan Arthur/Little, Brown & Co.
Pages:  385
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction
Author:  Elin Hilderbrand
Find out more about Ms Hilderbrand here!:  Facebook
Pre-order on:  Barnes & Noble



A Bit About The Author :

Elin Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three young children. She grew up in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, and traveled extensively before settling on Nantucket, which has been the setting for her five previous novels. Hilderbrand is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.


The Dame's Review :

I've been avoiding reading Elin Hilderbrand for years!  Yes, I'm not a chick-lit reader and I haven't been interested in a dip in the Atlantic with light fiction.  But when approached to read and review "Summerland," something just clicked with me, and I decided to take a chance on it.  I'm so glad I did.  This is a fabulous book!  Contrary to my prejudices, Elin Hilderbrand is no light-weight author, and her story about a family in distress is one of substance and real values to share.

Hilderbrand has hit a home run with her character development.  She not only knows women, but she has keen insight into the minds of young adults; particularly teens in trouble.  Her characters are well-developed, wholly alive and beautifully rendered in their dysfunctional ways!  I especially loved the character of Demeter, the girl who was on the fringes of the "in crowd," but who was pivotal on the fateful night of their destruction.  Her personal awakening and her mother's is a vital and gripping part of this story.  It was moving and read real to me. Nothing quite like denial!

The storyline was captivating. Difficult to pull myself away from after the first chapter. I found each of the several vignettes Ms Hilderbrand wrote into her book just compelling as they circled the main mystery of why a beautiful, successful and popular girl would floor her car and drive madly off the edge of the road to her death with her brother and friends beside her!  Each character developed was rich and exciting.  Their individual stories helped build the mystery and the plot of "Summerland," and their different insights into the behind the scenes of the summer "playland" of the wealthy and famous was just fascinating.  Nantucket never looked so interesting to me, and I'm a Massachusetts native (by way of the South!).

Drawing the curtain back on what motivates us to follow love, what pushes us beyond the pale and how we survive the choices we make as well as the choices of others that affect us, this book is one you'll remember a long time after the cover is closed.

"Summerland" is a book I would love to give to all my best friends, bookish friends, my daughter, my mother and my daughters-in-law.  I can't give it any better praise than that!  Not a disappointment at all, but a great surprise and an author I need to apologize to...Elin Hilderbrand is one I'll be going back to the stacks to read.

Highly recommended to everyone!  This one is a "Deep End of the Ocean"- type read.

5 stars

Giveaway!!!

3 copies of "Summerland"

Available for Giveaway!!!

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Giveaway ends on July 31st

US and Canada ONLY, please!  Sorry....

Thank you for visiting me, I know you have many places you could choose to be today.

Deborah/TheBookishDame