Summerland by Elin Hilderbrand (book review)

A perfect summer's night ends in a deadly crash - and four lives are changed forever.

On a warm June evening, a local tradition continues: the students of Nantucket High gather for a bonfire on the beach. But the celebration ends in tragedy after a horrible car crash leaved the driver, Penny Alistair, dead and her twin brother, Hobby, in a coma. Penny's boyfriend, Jake, and her friend Demeter are unhurt but haunted by the events of that night, and by the questions that linger about what happened in the car - and in the dunes before Penny took the wheel.

For Zoe, the twins' mother, the unthinkable awaits: life without her daughters, and an aagonizing recovery for the son who had been a star athlete with infinite prospects. Free-spirited Zoe has been as much friend as mother to her children, but now she has to face devastating truths about them, and about her own role in all that happened.

As summer unfolds, Zoe and the other parents ask whether their efforts to protect their children from life's realizities have only left them more vulnerable. The key to understanding the accident lies in what Penny learned that evening on the beach - but will it also destroy the survivors' fragile peace?


Elin Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three children. She is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and holds an MFA from the University of Iowa.

Thoughts from OHM:
I was very excited to get the chance to review Summerland. I hadn't read any of Elin's previous books and always love to find a new author to enjoy.
This wasn't quite the book I was expecting..I honestly thought it would just be a fluffy darker beach type book, but it's more of a dark drama. It took me about 1/3 of the way in to finally start enjoying it, there is a lot of jumping back and forth between characters and a lot of character information and stories to digest.
Once I got used to the writers style, I was able to relax a bit more and just enjoy. The characters are interesting and well-written and you really feel for them with what they have to endure.
It may not be a beach read, but it's a good read for the summer season! :)


* I received an Advanced Reading Copy, in exchange for my honest review. *