The Hotel Nantucket is light and deeply entertaining, with just the right amount of romance, food, intrigue, interesting characters, food, and the supernatural to make it a page turner. Not just a “beach read”, The Hotel Nantucket is escapist literature that can satisfy your need to immerse yourself in something not so heavy for a while.

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First, a summary of The Hotel Nantucket:

The hotel in The Hotel Nantucket has a checkered past. A fire in the top floors killed a maid named Grace nearly a century ago. Since then, it’s changed owners several times, became a low budget “family hotel,” and even sat empty for a while, attracting teenage partiers. The building has fallen into disrepair and is rumored to be haunted by Grace’s ghost.

A British billionaire scoops up the hotel at a bargain price and then proceeds to spend millions of dollars renovating it. One of his primary goals is to receive the elusive “5 key” rating from an Instagram travel influencer. Every billionaire loves a good challenge, after all!

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From the descriptions, the renovated hotel sounds lovely, and a local restaurateur named Lizbet is hired to manage it. Lizbet is recovering from a devastating break up with her longtime boyfriend and is looking forward to the challenge. However, she doesn’t have many applicants to choose from when it comes to assembling the “5 key” staff for the hotel. In fact, they’re a pretty motley crew, many with deep secrets and hidden flaws.

Learning the nature of these secrets is a fun component of the story. Why is rich boy Chad working in housekeeping? Why is Alessandra so villainous? What is Richie the night auditor up to when no one is looking? Character development seems to be one of Elin Hilderbrand’s strengths. Even the secondary characters were interesting. She even made a ghost character seem not hokey.

The author also creates wonderful settings. The descriptions of the Hotel Nantucket are luxurious and made me want to stay there. Additionally, the author is a longtime resident of Nantucket and I’m guessing her novels (most of which are set on the island) have boosted the Nantucket tourism industry. The way she describes all the food options would have been enough to motivate me to visit the island in my younger days.

The story line also kept me engaged. The romance was nice, but not too much. I enjoyed the story of different people coming together to make the hotel a success. And there are plenty of side shenanigans going on to keep readers entertained.

Overall, The Hotel Nantucket was just what I needed at the moment. Thanks for the recommendation, Buck!

Who’s your go-to author when you need something light and entertaining?