Nantucket Nights: A Novel [Hardcover]

Elin Hilderbrand (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 2002

The ties between women can run as deep as the ocean-but so can the secrets.

For 20 years, Kayla, Antoinette and Val have performed their own special summer ritual. Once a year, the old friends put aside their daily, separate lives to drink champagne, swap stories and swim naked under the Nantucket stars. But on one of those bonding nights, one of their trio swims out from the shore and doesn't return. After the surviving friends emerge from their grief, they realize that the repercussions of their loss go far beyond their little circle, and they begin to uncover layers of secrets-and their connections to each other-that were never revealed on the beach. What has made their friendship strong now has the power to destroy-their marriages, families, even themselves.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Elin Hilderbrand's Nantucket Nights (after The Beach Club) digs into the private lives of three middle-aged women Kayla, Val and Antoinette. For 20 years, they have made annual midnight excursions to the beach to drink champagne, skinny-dip and swap confidences, until one night Antoinette disappears into the surf and doesn't return. Juicy revelations wash up like broken seashells Antoinette had a daughter 20 years ago and a second love-child was on the way and that's just the beginning. Things get more twisted at every turn, with enough lies and betrayals to fuel a whole season of soap operas. It takes a little while for things to get going, but once they do, readers will be hooked. Regional author tour.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Kayla, Antoinette, and Val are a trio whose unlikely friendship was formed 20 years ago when they each rented a room in the same house. Val and Kayla were fast friends, but, despite Kayla's persistence, Antoinette kept her distance--until one night when her desire for a midnight swim inaugurated an annual ritual and cemented their bond. On a remote point on the island of Nantucket, the three women spend one night each Labor Day weekend drinking champagne, eating lobster, skinny-dipping, and baring their souls. One of the secrets revealed during their twentieth get-together launches a chain of events that changes them all forever. Antoinette swims out to sea and never returns, and as they search for her, wondering if she is alive, a complex web of deceptions (both intentional and unintended) begins to unravel. Though the characters' thoughts and actions seem at times a bit unrealistic, the novel is fast paced and suspenseful enough to keep readers interested. A likely candidate for summer-vacation reading. Beth Warrell
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (June 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312283350
• ISBN-13: 978-0312283353
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #879,911 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elin Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three young children. She grew up in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, and traveled extensively before settling on Nantucket, which has been the setting for her five previous novels. Hilderbrand is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't Put This One Down, September 16, 2002

By 

[e-mail] (United States of America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nantucket Nights: A Novel (Hardcover)

After having loved Hilderbrand's first book, The Beach Club, I couldn't wait to get my hands on Nantucket Nights. This book did not dissapoint. Despite having fewer characters, fewer pages, and fewer parrallel stories, this book was a far more complex book then her first. Aside from that the two are completely different entities, for which Ms. Hilderbrand should be commended. Too often, authors get burdened by publisher deadlines and churn out formulary stories, but not her.

This is an intricately woven story of family, of friendship, and of our perceptions of the truth. It is the story of instincts and judgements, and of identity.

Kayla, the story's protagonist, is a complex woman who struggles with insecurity in her marriage, and insecurity with who she is. She identifies herself as a mother, a wife, and a friend until the story unravels and all of that comes into question.

This is the story of three unlike women who, for twenty years, get together one night of Labor Day weekend for a ritualistic midnight swim, truth telling and end of Summer celebratory night. Well, on the twentieth anniversary of this night the unspeakable happens and their friendship -- amongst so many other things -- becomes unravelled when one of the women disappears before sharing a dark secret.

As Kayla searches for the truth about that secret, she begins to learn things about her friends and her family that she never would have imagined. As the pages turn towards the end, the reader is drawn in and Kayla learns so much about perception versus reality. She learns about herself, her family and who she has to be in order to render the strength to move on.

This book is fantastic, and I cannot wait to read more by this talented author. If you want a fast but intelligent and interesting read that delves into the human psyche and relationships, pick up one of her books. You will be captivated.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Why Did I LikeThis?, September 16, 2002

By 

BeachReader (Delaware) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nantucket Nights: A Novel (Hardcover)

This was definitely a light beach read --- a romance shrouded in a bit of mystery. I read it in just a few hours, enjoyed it while reading it, and found it quite a page-turner. But at the end I wondered why it appealed to me and why I even read it.

Thinking about this, I realized that the book was appealing because Hilderbrand pushed a lot of *hot* buttons: interracial relationships, extramarital sex, murder, women's friendship, female bonding, etc. She targeted an audience and reached it - the hallmark of a good marketing plan.

Almost every single situation bordered on preposterous....from Antoinette's "disappearance", to the ridiculous way the police acted, to the affair between an 18 and a 40 year old, to Kayla's behavior -- but I sped through it, so what does that say about me?

Guess I just needed something light to read at that particular time and this story reeled me in!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a supremely satisfying read, July 1, 2002

By 

"ashbyc4" (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nantucket Nights: A Novel (Hardcover)

As the old saying goes, "With friends like these, who needs enemies." That's exactly what NANTUCKET NIGHTS' central characters - Kayla, Antoinette and Val - discover on the twentieth anniversary of Night Swimmers, their annual celebration of life and friendship.

Once a year, for two decades, the three women have made a sacred pilgrimage to a secluded Nantucket beach, where they share decadent food and tantalizing secrets (two cornerstones of women's friendships). But, this year, betrayal and heartbreak (two more cornerstones of women's friendships) have come along for the ride. And when tragedy strikes the calm waters of their annual skinny dip, the two remaining friends are forced to deal with the far-reaching consequences on an island with a low tolerance for scandal.

Hilderbrand ambitiously explores the meaning of life's most intangible concepts - truth, love, loyalty, happiness and a sense of place - with a cast of unexpectedly human characters. Her greatest success in this book lies in the well-constructed contradictions that make Kayla's story impossible to put down. Her friends are her greatest source of strength, and her ultimate downfall. To punish her loved ones for hurting her, she ruins her own life. She loves an island that can't/won't love her back. And through her teenage son's eyes, she defines herself as both a good mother and a horrible mother.

Don't make the mistake of thinking NANTUCKET NIGHTS is merely light beach reading - the wine-cooler of the literary world. There's a lot more to this book than a fluffy mystery and scads of steamy sex. Kayla's downward spiral is inevitable, but irresistible. And NANTUCKET NIGHTS is a supremely satisfying read.