The Island by Elin Hilderbrand

Have you ever gone through a spell where you just don't feel like reading? For a while there I was reading and reviewing like the world was about to end (which it was supposed to at 6 p.m. Saturday or so I'm told) and then I hit a wall. I went through several books that I started and didn't finish. Then I decided to reserve a bunch, and, in the meantime, I borrowed a few from another library in an attempt to throw everything at the wall and see what stuck. Now most of the books I reserved have come in, and there's a pile of books to read at home. Hopefully the dry spell is over.

The Island by Elin Hilderbrand is one of the last books I read before the reader's block started, and I just never got around to typing up the review. It's the second Hilderbrand book that I've read.

The rotating third person perspective gives the reader insight into the inner lives' of the characters and their past heartbreaks. The island life and setting draws the reader in as much as the story and characters.

Chess has it all, a great job, a great life, and a great fiance; on paper her life is perfect, but life isn't meant to be perfect, and Chess has carried around a messy secret for a long time: you can't choose who you love. Months out from the wedding, Chess calls her mother in the middle of the night: the wedding's off because she doesn't love her fiance and she's left him. Chess begs her mother, Birdie, to break the news to the family and clean up her mess. Then Chess goes incommunicado and refuses to return her mother's phone calls or her sister, Tate's or her aunt India's. Chess quits her job, returns home and refuses to divulge the details of "all the things that have happened." One night unexpected news of a tragedy sends Chess into a tailspin.

The tragedy prompts Birdie to decide to take Chess, her daughter Tate, and her widowed sister India to their remote ancestral summer home on Tuckernuck Island off Nantucket for a month to engage in some girl bonding. She hopes this will be a time for them to reconnect and to heal. As the month progresses each woman's story emerges and each woman must work through her own issues and choices regarding their lives and loves.

I recommend you check out this book the next time you're in the library especially if you're a fan of Elin Hilderbrand.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

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