It always feels like summer begins when the new Elin Hilderbrand drops!
The Five Star Weekend by NYT Bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand is the perfect beach read for your summer tbr!
Hollis Shaw, a recently widowed and well-known food blogger, hears about the "Five Star Weekend" and decides to organize one. So, she gathers her "five stars," the best friend from each stage of your life, for a girls' weekend at her home on Nantucket. But it's not as picture-perfect as Hollis' expertly curated blog. Each woman is dealing with her own issues, and a few secrets come out over the weekend.
Every summer, I look forward to reading a Hilderbrand novel, and this one did not disappoint! I loved the cast of complex characters and how well each was developed. Told in multiple POVs, each of the women is dealing with big things in their own lives while trying to be there for Hollis and get along as a group, and plenty of drama is mixed in with the weekend activities. Hilderbrand manages to cover weighty topics, such as grief and loss, and balance them with lighter moments to create a compelling story with themes of forgiveness, growth, resilience, and examinations of relationships from the romantic to parent/child to friendship. All of this with a breezy writing style and beautiful setting that manages to make this a totally bingeable beach read that is full of heart.
Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown, and Company for the opportunity to review this ARC. I loved it!
My steep was iced Strawberry Hibiscus Oolong from Teabloom, with a twist of lemon!
www.teabloom.com
PUBLISHER'S SYNOPSIS:
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Hotel Nantucket : After tragedy strikes, food blogger Hollis Shaw gathers four friends from different stages in her life to spend an unforgettable weekend on Nantucket.
Hollis Shaw's life seems picture-perfect. She's the creator of the popular food blog Hungry with Hollis and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, he leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis's perfect life—her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline—grow deeper.
So when Hollis hears about something called a "Five-Star Weekend"—one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife—she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend on Nantucket. But the weekend doesn't turn out to be a joyful Hallmark movie.
The husband of Hollis's childhood friend Tatum arranges for Hollis's first love, Jack Finigan, to spend time with them, stirring up old feelings. Meanwhile, Tatum is forced to play nice with abrasive and elitist Dru-Ann, Hollis's best friend from UNC Chapel Hill. Dru-Ann's career as a prominent Chicago sports agent is on the line after her comments about a client's mental health issues are misconstrued online. Brooke, Hollis's friend from their thirties, has just discovered that her husband is having an inappropriate relationship with a woman at work. Again! And then there's Gigi, a stranger to everyone (including Hollis) who reached out to Hollis through her blog. Gigi embodies an unusual grace and, as it happens, has many secrets.
The Five-Star Weekend is a surprising and captivating story about friendship, love, and self-discovery set on Nantucket. It will be a weekend like no other.
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