Hilderbrand, Elin (Elin Hilderbrand Cunningham)

views updated

Hilderbrand, Elin (Elin Hilderbrand Cunningham)

PERSONAL:

Married Chip Cunningham; children: Max, Dawson. Education: Graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the University of Iowa's graduate fiction workshop.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Nantucket, MA. Office—Nantucket Preservation Trust, 2 Union St., Nantucket, MA 02554.

CAREER:

Worked as a paralegal for attorney Richard Loftin, Nantucket, MA; Nantucket Preservation Trust, Nantucket, director.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

The Beach Club, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

Nantucket Nights, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Summer People, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2003.

The Blue Bistro, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2005.

The Love Season, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Barefoot, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 2007.

A Summer Affair, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 2008.

Contributor to journals, including Massachusetts Review and Colorado Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Elin Hilderbrand is the author of a number of novels that are all set on the historic island of Nantucket, which is also her home. Her first novel, The Beach Club, features Mack Peterson, a man originally from Iowa who has been managing the Nantucket Beach Club and Hotel for eleven years. As the new season begins, he considers whether he would like to buy the hotel from owners Bill and Therese Elliot, the parents of rebellious eighteen-year-old Cecily. Mack has a beautiful girlfriend, Maribel Cox, who is hinting about a wedding, an elderly friend named Lacey Gardner, and an enemy, Vance Robbins, who once vied with Mack for his job but who is now a bellboy. Other characters include a new receptionist who has a special reason for finding a man, and another man who gives Mack competition for Maribel. The relationships between the characters are complicated when a hurricane threatens the resort. A Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote that "though somewhat predictable, these summer escapades have a strong emotional pull, and readers will remain absorbed until the surprising denouement." Booklist contributor Deborah Rysso considered The Beach Club to be a "delectably dramatic debut novel."

In Nantucket Nights, the main characters are Kayla, Antoinette, and Valerie, three women who have known each other for two decades. The novel is about their relationships as they continue their tradition of celebrating over the Labor Day weekend with lobster, champagne, skinny dipping, and soul-baring. This story was followed by Summer People, which also features a woman character and a vacation tradition on Nantucket. Beth Newton and her teenage twins, Garrett and Winnie, are beginning their annual Nantucket vacation without their father, Arch, as the book opens. Arch is not there with them because he perished in a plane crash. However, before he died, he invited Marcus, the son of a black woman he was defending in a murder trial. Added to this mix during an unusual vacation for the family is David, an old love of Beth's who is showing new interest in her. The story was characterized as "more entertaining beach reading" by Booklist contributor Beth Leistensnider.

The eatery in The Blue Bistro is an exclusive ocean-side restaurant owned by Thatcher Smith, who plans to close it after the season ends. His talented chef is the reclusive Fiona Kemp, with whom he eats dinner every night after the restaurant closes. Into their lives comes Adrienne Dealey, a seasonal worker newly arrived from Aspen who is looking for employment. Although she has no restaurant experience, Thatcher hires her, and she proves to be a quick learner. She soon finds herself falling in love with Thatcher, but she is confused as to why Fiona is so abrupt with her. The question of why such a fabulous, popular restaurant is closing also figures into the novel. Other characters include a handsome bartender and an ambitious pastry chef. As with her previous novels, Hilderbrand provides more than a story as she describes the beautiful island of Nantucket and all that it has to offer. Joanne Wilkinson, writing in Booklist, called the novel "fun, stylish, and absorbing vacation reading."

The Love Season also focuses on characters on Nantucket, this time following young Renata and her fiancé Cade as they visit the island so she can meet Cade's rich parents. While on the island, Renata arranges a meeting with her godmother Marguerite, who was somehow involved in Renata's mother's death when Renata was a child. Marguerite, in turn, nervously prepares to meet her goddaughter and wonders how to explain the past to the young woman. Some critics found the interaction between the two women compelling and fascinating. Certain passages in The Love Season are "very moving," wrote Booklist contributor Patty Engelmann. Others were pleased with the story's pace and attention-grabbing plot line. The book is a "good page-turner," noted Ann H. Fisher in a review for the Library Journal.

Hilderbrand's next novel, Barefoot, tells the story of three women, the two Lyndon sisters and their friend Melanie, as they attempt to escape the issues they face in their real life by taking a summer vacation at the Lyndon family's summer retreat on Nantucket. Vicki has just learned that she has stage two lung cancer, a deep blow for the busy mother of two. Sister Brenda also has problems, though hers are of her own making; she has recently been fired from her teaching job at Champion College in the wake of an affair she had with a male student. Her own academic research has failed to yield any true discoveries, and that combined with the scandal makes it unlikely she will find gainful employment in academia any time soon. She plans to spend her summer working on a screenplay adaptation of the novel she has been working on, in hopes that it will jump start a new career, but she also knows this is at odds with the reality of supporting her sister through her illness and helping with her children. Melanie, who is Vicki's friend, is escaping a society marriage to a cheating husband, and has just discovered that she is pregnant, the final irony in her life given the years she has attempted to have a baby through various medical means. The trio's relaxing summer is anything but, particularly thanks to the arrival of Josh, a handsome twenty-something Vicki ultimately hires on to watch her two boys. Hilderbrand paints a chaotic summer of discovery, pain, and friendship. Bronwyn Miller, in a review for the Bookreporter.com Web site, wrote that the book "has all the ingredients for a perfect summer read: a beautiful setting, conflict, romance, passion, friendship, fear and characters facing unthinkable odds." A contributor for Kirkus Reviews commented that the plot of the book is "nothing original, but in Hilderbrand's hands it's easy to get lost in the story." A writer for the Midwest Book Review Web site, remarked that "this deep character study will hook the audience who will want to know what is happening to each of the women."

A Summer Affair is Hilderbrand's next offering after Barefoot. The book follows the misadventures of talented glassblower Sheila Crispin Cook, a mother of four, who volunteers to serve as cochair for the local Children's Summer Gala on Nantucket. Unfortunately, she soon discovers that the event is more than she can handle. Sheila starts promising one thing after another, buoyed by her success in retaining rock star Max West, her former boyfriend, to play at the gala. Between the pressure of the event itself and juggling all of her different duties, as well as the presence of Max and her new affair with the executive director of the charity, Sheila has a hard time keeping everything moving in the right direction.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 15, 2000, Deborah Rysso, review of The Beach Club, p. 1730; March 15, 2002, Beth Warrell, review of Nantucket Nights, p. 1211; June 1, 2003, Beth Leistensnider, review of Summer People, p. 1743; May 15, 2005, Joanne Wilkinson, review of The Blue Bistro, p. 1636; April 15, 2006, Patty Engelmann, review of The Love Season, p. 32.

Entertainment Weekly, June 30, 2006, Leah Greenblatt, review of The Love Season, p. 166.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2002, review of Nantucket Nights, p. 278; April 1, 2005, review of The Blue Bistro, p. 374; April 15, 2006, review of The Love Season, p. 370; May 15, 2007, review of Barefoot.

Library Journal, April 15, 2006, Ann H. Fisher, review of The Love Season, p. 66.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 28, 2006, Patricia Sheridan, "Breakfast with … Elin Hilderbrand."

Publishers Weekly, May 29, 2000, review of The Beach Club, p. 51; May 27, 2002, review of Nantucket Nights, p. 39; May 30, 2005, review of The Blue Bistro, p. 40; April 10, 2006, review of The Love Season, p. 48; April 17, 2006, review of The Love Season, p. 165; April 2, 2007, review of Barefoot, p. 34.