October 2022 Reads
October 31, 2022
Book Review | Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez
November 1, 2022
Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hilderbrand
★★★★☆
416 pages
Published: June 14th, 2022 by Little, Brown and Company
Plot
After a tragic fire in 1922 that killed 19-year-old chambermaid, Grace Hadley, The Hotel Nantucket descended from a gilded age gem to a mediocre budget-friendly lodge to inevitably an abandoned eyesore — until it’s purchased and renovated top to bottom by London billionaire, Xavier Darling. Xavier hires Nantucket sweetheart Lizbet Keaton as his general manager, and Lizbet, in turn, pulls together a charismatic, if inexperienced, staff who share the vision of turning the fate of the hotel around. They face challenges in getting along with one another (and with the guests), in overcoming the hotel’s bad reputation, and in surviving the (mostly) harmless shenanigans of Grace Hadley herself — who won’t stop haunting the hotel until her murder is acknowledged. (Goodreads)
Main Characters
- Lizbet – GM of Hotel Nantucket. Used to manage The Deck bar/grill on the water with JJ until he cheated on her
- Grace – the ghost that haunts the Hotel Nantucket; she was locked in during a fire and wants someone to find out who murdered her
- Michael – friends with Lizbet, wealthy. Is having an affair with Alexandra
- Alessandra – front desk manager. Grew up watching her mother swindle from men, she is following in her footsteps
- Edie – front desk worker
- Heidi – wife of Michael
- Wanda and Louie – kids staying at the hotel for the summer with their mom Kimber and dog Doug
- Lyric – next door neighbor of Michael and Heidi
- Chad – working as a maid; rich boy that has a secret
- Xavier Darling – owner of the hotel that put a lot of money into it
- Shelly Carpenter – Instagram hotel reviewer, very hard to please. Her real identity is not known
- Richie – night auditor hired to give Lizbet a break from having to work double shifts
- Chef Mario – works in the attached restaurant
- Miss English – head of cleaning staff, used to work on a cruise ship
- Zeke – bellboy, grandson of Miss English
- Adam and Raoul – married, bell boys. Must not work in the same shift
- Octavia – housekeeping staff
- Bibi – housekeeping staff; single mother to a 9 month old
- JJ – Lizbets ex; own popular place in town, The Deck (cheated on Lizbet with their wine supplier, Christina)
My Review
I didn’t read the synopsis before starting this book – so when a ghost had her own chapter, I rolled my eyes. But I take that back now.
Likes
- All of the stories of all the characters blended together and the characters were so great
- I think this was one of my favorite of her books – and it was fun to see the little Easter eggs of the other characters/books she has written
Dislikes
- Honestly, there wasn’t much that I didn’t like about this book
Spoilers
*SPOILERS – Do NOT expand this section unless you want to know the spoilers!*
Miss English is one of the women that Xavier Darling was pursing. He proposed to her when he comes to the hotel but she turns him down. He sells the hotel at the end of the season because of this. Chad’s dad and Miss English buy the hotel together.
Chad’s secret was that the day of his graduation, he had a huge party at his parent’s house. It got out of hand, he used a chef knife to cut off the top of a champagne bottle. It hit his best friend in the eye and made him blind. While he was at the hospital with his friend, his house burned and his dog died.
Shelly Carpenter ended up being Kimber, the mom of of the family. Richie, the night auditor, was charged with wire fraud – he was stealing credit card numbers of the guests to help pay down his debt. Richie and Kimber fall in love.
Yolanda and Beatrice end up being a couple. Lizbet and Mario end up in love. Bibi goes to college for criminal justice and turns out she did steal the scarf. Grace is finally set free when her story is discovered in a journal by the old hotel owner that she had been having an affair with, but she decides to stay one more year with the hotel.
Miss English is one of the people that Xavier is pursuing.