Reading List · Lisanne Swart
Authors Like
Hilderbrand has published a new Nantucket-set novel nearly every summer since 2000, building a body of work that follows the same island’s families, restaurants, and seasonal rhythms across decades. This list is for readers who want more of that specific pleasure: warm, character-driven summer fiction set in a beloved place, often with an ensemble cast and a light mystery or emotional reckoning underneath the sunshine.
By Lisanne Swart · 6 authors · Beach Reads · Women’s Fiction · Updated August 2026
Mary Kay Andrews
Andrews writes warm, plot-driven Southern beach fiction — often centered on a house, a business, or a family secret — with the same escapist pull and seasonal rhythm as Hilderbrand’s Nantucket novels, just relocated to the Carolina and Georgia coast.
The closest genre peer for readers who want the exact same category of book: a beautiful coastal setting, a likable heroine, and a plot that moves fast enough for a weekend.
Elin Hilderbrand’s contemporary — Nancy Thayer
Thayer, remarkably, also writes Nantucket-set women’s fiction and has for decades — the two authors share not just a genre but literally the same island setting, following different families through the same seasonal social world.
If it’s specifically Nantucket you love, not just beach fiction generally, Thayer is the only other major author working the exact same setting.
Dorothea Benton Frank
Frank’s Lowcountry novels, set around Charleston and the South Carolina Sea Islands, share Hilderbrand’s formula of family drama, a strong sense of place, and warm humor, spanning a career of nearly two dozen bestselling beach novels.
A close genre match for readers who want the coastal-setting, ensemble-family formula in a different American region.
Kristin Hannah
Hannah writes emotionally driven women’s fiction that, like Hilderbrand’s later and more dramatic novels, blends readability with real emotional weight — grief, family rupture, resilience — though Hannah’s range extends further into historical fiction.
Useful if you want Hilderbrand’s emotional accessibility with slightly higher literary ambition and more varied settings.
Emily Henry
Henry’s contemporary romantic comedies, including Beach Read and Book Lovers, share Hilderbrand’s commercial warmth and summer-vacation appeal, aimed at a slightly younger readership and leaning more fully into romance than family drama.
A good next step if what you love about Hilderbrand is specifically the vacation-read feeling rather than the multi-generational family plotting.
Katherine Center
Center’s laugh-and-cry romantic comedies share Hilderbrand’s blend of accessible warmth and real emotional stakes, though Center’s books tend to center a single love story rather than Hilderbrand’s larger ensemble casts.
A useful pairing if Hilderbrand’s tonal balance — genuinely moving, genuinely fun — is what draws you back, even without the beach setting.
Where to start if you loved Elin Hilderbrand
If you want the exact same setting, then read Nancy Thayer.
She also writes Nantucket-set women’s fiction, following different families through the same seasonal world.
If you want the same formula in a new region, then read Mary Kay Andrews or Dorothea Benton Frank.
Coastal settings, ensemble families, warm humor — just relocated to the Carolina and Georgia coast.
If you want more romance and less family drama, then read Emily Henry.
Same vacation-read appeal, aimed more fully at the romance genre.
If you want her own work first, then start with her books.
My complete guide to Elin Hilderbrand’s own novels is the place to begin.
If you want more of this tradition, then keep exploring it.
My best beach reads list has the natural successors.
