The Hotel Nantucket is a shimmering novel that blends romance, reinvention, and a touch of the supernatural. It’s the story of second chances, for a seaside hotel, for the people who work within its walls, and even for a ghost who refuses to leave. True to Hilderbrand’s signature style, the novel offers a lively ensemble of characters whose tangled relationships and personal transformations unfold against the picturesque backdrop of Nantucket Island.

At the heart of the story is Lizbet Keaton, the capable and newly single manager tasked with resurrecting the once-glamorous but long-abandoned Hotel Nantucket. After discovering her partner’s infidelity, Lizbet is determined to rebuild her life, and the hotel’s grand reopening becomes her chance to prove herself, both professionally and personally. She assembles a staff as eclectic as the island itself, a mix of locals, dreamers, and escapees from their own messy pasts. Together, they must impress a secretive and famously harsh hotel reviewer known only as Shelly Carpenter, whose elusive five-key rating could make or break their success.

Hilderbrand excels at crafting intersecting story-lines, and here the dynamics between the hotel’s staff and guests form a vibrant web of tension, attraction, and redemption. There’s Chad, the handsome, quietly complicated concierge with a hidden past. Magdalena, the young chambermaid navigating both romance and ambition, and Kimber, a social media influencer whose picture-perfect persona masks her insecurities. Hilderbrand deftly balances the characters’ stories like guests checking in and out of an emotional resort.

Threaded through all of this bustle is Grace Hadley, the hotel’s resident ghost. A young maid who perished in a tragic fire in 1922, Grace has haunted the hotel for decades, trapped between worlds by the mystery of her death and her longing for justice. But Grace isn’t a menacing spirit, she’s a gentle observer, often wry and surprisingly compassionate. Her ghostly perspective adds depth and charm, transforming the novel from simple summer escapism into something more reflective. Through Grace’s eyes, we see the guests’ vulnerabilities laid bare, their loneliness, their secrets, and their yearning for connection.

Like the island itself, the novel shimmers on the surface but runs deep beneath the tide. Beneath the breezy beach-town setting lies a meditation on forgiveness and rebirth. Lizbet’s determination to restore the hotel mirrors her own inner renovation: peeling back the wallpaper of heartbreak to rediscover her strength. Through the slow mending of relationships, The Hotel Nantucket reveals itself as a meditation on belonging and the quiet strength it takes to begin again.