# The 25 Best Elin Hilderbrand Novels

> Thirty-odd summers on one island produce a lot of candidates, and this field runs from the blockbusters that became TV series to the early, quieter stories longtime readers still swear by. Two covers at a time, you decide which one earns the top of the pile.

*By YPB Team · Published October 24, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-25-best-elin-hilderbrand-novels*

---

## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **28 Summers** — score 1000/1000
   A 2020 novel about Mallory and Jake, who meet on Nantucket for one weekend every Labor Day across 28 years while living separate lives.
2. **The Island** — score 781/1000
   A 2010 novel about four women, a mother, her sisters and daughters, who retreat to a rustic Tuckernuck cottage after a cancelled wedding.
3. **The Perfect Couple** — score 626/1000
   A 2018 Nantucket murder mystery in which a wedding weekend unravels after a body is found in the harbor, later adapted into a Netflix series.
4. **Silver Girl** — score 492/1000
   A 2011 novel about the wife of a Madoff-style fraudster hiding out on Nantucket with her estranged best friend.
5. **Winter Street** — score 492/1000
   The 2014 opener of the Quinn family holiday series, set at a Nantucket inn over a Christmas when every family member arrives in crisis.
6. **A Summer Affair** — score 491/1000
   A 2008 novel about glassblower Claire Danner Crispin, whose charity gala chairmanship on Nantucket leads her into an affair.
7. **Swan Song** — score 491/1000
   Hilderbrand's 2024 farewell Nantucket novel, in which a flashy new couple's house burns down and their personal assistant goes missing.
8. **The Beach Club** — score 491/1000
   Hilderbrand's 2000 debut, following the owner, manager and staff of a Nantucket beach club hotel over one summer season.
9. **The Identicals** — score 434/1000
   A 2017 novel about estranged twin sisters who swap islands, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, for one summer.
10. **The Five-Star Weekend** — score 367/1000
   A 2023 novel in which food blogger Hollis Shaw invites one friend from each stage of her life to a luxe Nantucket weekend after her husband's death.
11. **Summer of '69** — score 367/1000
   Hilderbrand's 2019 historical novel following the Levin family through the summer of the moon landing, Woodstock and Chappaquiddick.
12. **The Rumor** — score 367/1000
   A 2015 novel in which gossip about two Nantucket best friends, a novelist and a landscape designer, spirals through the island's summer.
13. **Nantucket Nights** — score 367/1000
   A 2002 novel about three friends whose annual midnight swim ends with one of them vanishing in the water, exposing years of secrets.
14. **Here's to Us** — score 289/1000
   A 2016 novel in which a celebrity chef's three wives gather at his Nantucket cottage to scatter his ashes.
15. **Winter in Paradise** — score 289/1000
   The 2018 first book of the Paradise trilogy, in which Irene Steele learns her late husband had a secret second life on St. John.
16. **The Castaways** — score 289/1000
   A 2009 novel in which a tight-knit group of Nantucket friends reckons with the drowning of a couple at their center.
17. **The Love Season** — score 289/1000
   A 2006 novel that unfolds over a single day as Nantucket caterer Marguerite reunites with the goddaughter she has not seen in 14 years.
18. **The Academy** — score 289/1000
   A 2026 boarding-school novel co-written with Shelby Cunningham, following a scandal-filled year at the elite Tiffin Academy in New England.
19. **Summerland** — score 289/1000
   A 2012 novel about a Nantucket community grieving after a graduation-night car crash kills a popular teenager and injures her friends.
20. **Beautiful Day** — score 289/1000
   A 2013 novel about a Nantucket wedding guided by the late mother of the bride's notebook of instructions as family secrets surface.
21. **The Matchmaker** — score 289/1000
   A 2014 novel about Dabney Kimball Beech, a Nantucket matchmaker with a perfect record whose own first love returns to the island.
22. **The Hotel Nantucket** — score 197/1000
   A 2022 novel about the reopening of a once-grand island hotel, its new staff, a ghost in room 101 and a secret hotel critic.
23. **The Blue Bistro** — score 197/1000
   A 2005 novel set over the final season of a beloved Nantucket restaurant, built around hostess Adrienne and its reclusive chef Fiona.
24. **Golden Girl** — score 197/1000
   A 2021 novel narrated by a Nantucket author who dies in a hit-and-run and watches her family from the afterlife with three chances to intervene.
25. **Barefoot** — score 197/1000
   A 2007 novel about three women who flee to a Nantucket cottage for a summer that upends each of their lives.

Tags: romance, books, fiction, authors, elin hilderbrand, nantucket