January 1, 2024
Matching the title, the publisher is claiming this will be blockbuster best-selling Hilderbrand's last Nantucket-set summer novel. It is, fittingly, full of favorite characters--and some mysteriously wealthy newcomers, the Richardsons. They've bought a lavish house, but when it burns to the ground and their employee goes missing, the island is in for plenty of drama. With a 750K-copy first printing. Prepub Alert.
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Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
April 1, 2024
A stranger comes to town, and a beloved storyteller plays this creative-writing standby for all it's worth. Hilderbrand fans, a vast and devoted legion, will remember Blond Sharon, the notorious island gossip. In what is purportedly the last of the Nantucket novels, Blond Sharon decides to pursue her lifelong dream of fiction writing. In the collective opinion of the island--aka the "cobblestone telegraph"--she's qualified. "Well, we think, she's certainly demonstrated her keen interest in other people's stories, the seedier and more salacious, the better." Blond Sharon's first assignment in her online creative writing class is to create a two-person character study, and Hilderbrand has her write up the two who arrive on the ferry in an opening scene of the book, using the same descriptors Hilderbrand has. Amusingly, the class is totally unimpressed. "'I found it predictable, ' Willow said. 'Like maybe Sharon used ChatGPT with the prompt "Write a character study about two women getting off the ferry, one prep and one punk."'" Blond Sharon abandons these characters, but Hilderbrand thankfully does not. They are Kacy Kapenash, daughter of retiring police chief Ed Kapenash (the other swan song referred to by the title), and her new friend Coco Coyle, who has given up her bartending job in the Virgin Islands to become a "personal concierge" for the other strangers-who-have-come-to-town. These are the Richardsons, Bull and Leslee, a wild and wealthy couple who have purchased a $22 million beachfront property and plan to take Nantucket by storm. As the book opens, their house has burned down during an end-of-summer party on their yacht, and Coco is missing, feared both responsible for the fire and dead. Though it's the last weekend of his tenure, Chief Ed refuses to let the incoming chief, Zara Washington, take this one over. The investigation goes forward in parallel with a review of the summer's intrigues, love affairs, and festivities. Whatever else you can say about Leslee Richardson, she knows how to throw a party, and Hilderbrand is just the writer to design her invitations, menus, themes, playlists, and outfits. And that hot tub! Though Hilderbrand threatens to kill all our darlings with this last laugh, her acknowledgments say it's just "for now."
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April 15, 2024
Nantucket Police Chief Ed Kapenash is days away from retirement when he gets a call: a house has burned down and a woman is missing. The house belongs to Bull and Leslee Richardson and the woman is their concierge, Coco, who fell (jumped? was pushed?) off their boat. The story then flashes back to the beginning of the chief's last summer, when the Richardsons arrive on the island, throwing their money and favors around. The story also belongs to Coco, who's not quite a grifter, but has her own reasons for working for the Richardsons. As the story alternates between the chief's late-August investigation and the events of the summer, readers learn how Nantucket soured on the Richardsons. Hilderbrand has promised this is her last Nantucket novel and she ends the series with a bang. There are plenty of Easter eggs for longtime fans, but even those diving in to her exquisite writing for the first time are in for a treat: a story that feels like it's being told over cocktails at the Oystercatcher, perfectly paced for maximum drama with characters you can't get enough of. This is aspirational escapism at its finest. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Hilderbrand's final Nantucket novel will draw old and new readers out of the woodwork.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
May 3, 2024
Hilderbrand's (The Five-Star Weekend) many fans will feel bittersweet about her latest: it follows her usual mix of colorful and glittering characters and places on Nantucket Island, but she says it will be her last Nantucket-set novel. Police chief Ed Kapenash is retiring after having a heart attack, but on his last weekend on the job, a house destroyed by fire and a missing friend of his daughter make him defer his retirement. The story returns to the arrival and wild lives of ultra-wealthy and mysterious newcomers, the Robinson family. In a story told from many perspectives, readers learn how the ostentatious Robinsons and their wild parties brought out the best, the worst, and underlying conflicts in many Nantucket islanders. All the characters, especially the Robinsons, have secrets and resentments they want to keep hidden. Fans will be thrilled to revisit characters from Hilderbrand's earlier stories and see how their lives have moved on and continue to change up until the sweetly romantic ending. Readers new to the author may find it difficult keeping track of the many characters and be best served by first reading her earlier books. VERDICT A must-read for Hilderbrand's many enthusiastic followers.--Jan Marry
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
June 17, 2024
Hilderbrand closes out her long run of Nantucket novels (after The Five-Star Weekend) with an engrossing story of three mysterious newcomers. Leslee and Bull Richardson arrive at the multimillion-dollar house they’ve just purchased on Nantucket with Coco, their live-in concierge. Coco, an aspiring writer, hopes to show her screenplay to Bull, a businessman who’s produced a couple of movies, and she landed the gig by lying about how well she knows the island. Larger-than-life Leslee throws lavish parties at the couple’s oceanfront house, but she increasingly rubs people the wrong way—women, especially—by flirting with men who are taken. By the end, as readers will know from a flash-forward opening, the Richardsons will be largely shunned, Coco will go missing, and their house will go up in flames. In chapters exploring Bull’s shady business dealings and Coco’s duplicity, Hilderbrand gradually teases out exactly what happens and why. Strong characterizations and delicious moments of tension make this a worthy note to end on. Readers will be riveted. Agents: David Forrer and Michael Carlisle, InkWell Management.