Meet me on Nantucket
Everyone was right and I was wrong.
My friend Caroline Moss of
is not just an influencer, she is my influencer. Or maybe my un-influencer.When I need to buy something, I ask her if I need it (no, she told me today, you do not need a candle warmer, you can light a candle like a big girl) and where I should get it at the best price (she will literally hunt down a discount for me).
But I also have a contrarian streak, and when she told me I should read Elin Hilderbrand, I said no thank you. I have piles of books around my office begging me to read them. I keep a list of classics I need to read (or re-read) in my notebook. I want to watch a lot of TV and go to the movies. I do not, I told her, want to sit around and read beachy stories about rich women on a wealthy island off the coast of Massachusetts.
But on our recent trip to Vegas, where I forgot to bring a book, she told me to read Nantucket Nights and for some reason I said fine okay and downloaded it on my phone (I love the Scribd app but your library will also have all of her books for free I guarantee it) and then spent the entire flight and the entire next night finishing this story and texting Caroline nonstop.
I love this book.
WOW {redacted} and REDACTED can F—- OFF
I belong on Nantucket.
I love Elin. I am an Elinhead.
The next night I started Silvergirl and posted this video on Instagram and apparently, I am not the only person who was tardy to the Nantucket party. These books are cozy and absorbing. The characters all have rich interior lives and big exterior issues and at the end things always seem pretty okay even if they’ve gone through something that makes you text your friend SERIOUSLY WTF?
One commenter said that after a book or two you start to realize all the books are sort of the same and I truly think that is a plus for me at this point in my life. There’s so much uncertainty in the world, so many unsolvable problems, that it feels nice to visit a place where everyone is, at their core, a good person trying their best, where every story gets a satisfying — if not perfectly happy — ending.
I’m 12% of the way through Summerland right now, and every character has already been through too much. I read a little bit each night and on my phone instead of scrolling during the day. I don’t know where we’re going or how we’re going to get there, but I know that Elin is not going to let me down.
If you like books, I have an Instagram dedicated to books and only books!
And if you have any opinions on the Elin I should read next, let me know.
Hi Nora! I don't think it's a stretch that a gaggle of similar NI fans would be delighted to attend a similar "EH bucket list" event, maybe at a Marriott in Phoenix? that way you could pop in and hang with us, but then head home to your normal life away from nerds who have found new life in your writing and speaking. You should consider it! we could keep it low budget..... But classy. With, like, canapes from Trader Joe's and a case of White Claw.
Your post made me read the Hotel Nantucket, my first Elin book with a likable ghost(!?) as a character and I loved it. I thought this email could be an invitation to an actual Nantucket sad persons’ retreat and would like to now strongly advocate for one.