This month’s best read is The Rumor by Elin Hilderbrand. Dubbed ‘The Queen of the Beach Read’, this author is hugely prolific, something I adore because it means I can binge read to my heart’s content.
A Story Set On An Island
I found this author quite recently because I noticed she was one of the writers that people who buy my books also read. Then, recently, when in Arizona and browsing in a Barnes & Noble in Phoenix, I saw Elin Hilderbrand’s books everywhere. She is obviously very popular in the US, so I picked up The Rumor. I soon found out why! Luckily, I had a transatlantic flight coming up where I could read uninterruptedly because I just couldn’t put this book down.
Like many of Elin Hilderbrand’s books, this one is set in Nantucket, an island off the East Coast. This island is a popular holiday resort, very much like Åland, the Nordic island that I write about between Finland and Sweden. Another similarity is that the population of Nantucket out of season is tiny and everyone knows everyone else. And the locals like nothing better than a good gossip. Reading The Rumor was like being transported to an American version of the Åland Islands!
A Story Of Friendship
The story of The Rumor centres around two friends, Grace and Madeline. They have perfect marriages, beautiful kids and Saturday double dates with their successful husbands. But the rumour has it that Madeline, a novelist, suffers from writer’s block and Grace who’s ambitions to transform her backyard to a summer paradise is working a little too closely with her ruggedly handsome landscape architect.
The truth of what’s really going on in these two women’s lives is far more serious than the gossiping Nantucket folk could imagine.
A New Favourite Author
I loved Hilderbrand’s writing, her easy style belies the seriousness of the subject matter. How idle talk can harm the subject of the gossiping, or how the push for success can make us blind to what we already have and how lucky and blessed we are.
Elin Hilderbrand lives in Nantucket and writes long-hand, which just sounds incredible to me. How can you plot a novel without the search function on Word, or autocorrect? I’d love to know …
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