Author Guide · Beach Reads & Women’s Fiction
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Elin Hilderbrand published her first novel, The Beach Club, in 2000, about a hotel manager on Nantucket, the island south of Cape Cod where she lives. Over the next 24 years she published a novel nearly every summer, 30 in all, 27 of them set on the island, until Swan Song (2024), which she announced as her last Nantucket book. New York magazine called her “the queen of beach reads” in 2019, and Netflix turned The Perfect Couple into a series with Nicole Kidman in 2024. The books stand alone, but characters, restaurants and the island’s police chief turn up again and again. This guide covers her 14 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 14 key books · 2000–2024 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Elin Hilderbrand’s best-known books are The Perfect Couple (2018), 28 Summers (2020), Summer of ’69 (2019), The Hotel Nantucket (2022) and Swan Song (2024), her last Nantucket novel; Winter Street (2014) starts her four-book Christmas series. Start with The Perfect Couple, a wedding-weekend mystery and the book behind the 2024 Netflix series.
Where to Start with Elin Hilderbrand
If you want her best-known book
→ The Perfect Couple (2018) — a death on the morning of a Nantucket wedding.
If you want a love story across decades
→ 28 Summers (2020) — one weekend every summer, for 28 years.
If you want a Christmas read
→ Winter Street (2014) — the first of the four Winter Street novels.
If you have read the others
→ Swan Song (2024) — the send-off, with old characters returning.
14 Elin Hilderbrand Books, in Order
The Beach Club
Her first novel follows one summer at a small Nantucket hotel through its manager, Mack Peterson, who has run the Beach Club for twelve seasons, its owner, and the staff and guests around them. It set the pattern for much of what followed: an ensemble cast, one season, and the island as the common ground.
The Blue Bistro
Adrienne Dealey takes a job as assistant manager at the Blue Bistro, a celebrated Nantucket restaurant in what turns out to be its final summer, and falls for its owner, Thatcher Smith. His business partner, the chef Fiona Kemp, is keeping a secret that shapes the whole season.
Barefoot
Three women escape to a cottage on Nantucket for the summer: Vicki, who has just been diagnosed with cancer; her sister Brenda, who has lost her job after an affair; and Vicki’s friend Melanie, newly pregnant just as she learns her husband is having an affair.
The Castaways
Four Nantucket couples who call themselves the Castaways have been close friends for years. When two of them drown while sailing to Martha’s Vineyard, the six who are left have to ask how it happened, and what each of them was hiding.
Silver Girl
Meredith Delinn’s husband is in prison for defrauding his investors through a Ponzi scheme, and she is shunned by almost everyone she knows. She hides out on Nantucket with Connie, a friend from her Philadelphia girlhood whom she had not spoken to in years and who is grieving her own husband.
Winter Street
Kelley Quinn, owner of the Winter Street Inn on Nantucket, catches his second wife kissing the inn’s Santa Claus days before Christmas, while his four grown children arrive with crises of their own. The first of four Winter Street novels, followed by Winter Stroll (2015), Winter Storms (2016) and Winter Solstice (2017).
The Identicals
Identical twins Tabitha and Harper Frost were split up when their parents divorced, one raised on Nantucket and the other on Martha’s Vineyard. Grown up and barely speaking, they swap islands for a summer after a family crisis.
The Perfect Couple
On the morning of a lavish Nantucket wedding, the maid of honour is found dead in the water, and Chief Ed Kapenash has to work out whether it was an accident or murder. The investigation goes through the bride, the groom’s wealthy family and the guests one by one. Netflix adapted it in 2024 as a limited series with Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber and Eve Hewson.
Summer of ’69
The four Levin siblings spend the summer of 1969 at their grandmother’s house on Nantucket while the moon landing, Chappaquiddick and the war in Vietnam play out around them; their brother Tiger is serving there. The publisher billed it as her first historical novel, and it became a number-one New York Times bestseller.
28 Summers
Mallory Blessing meets Jake McCloud in 1993 when she hosts her brother’s bachelor weekend at the Nantucket cottage she has inherited, and they agree to meet there every Labor Day weekend. The book follows their affair to 2020, each year opening with that summer’s headlines, while Jake’s wife runs for president. It is modelled on the 1978 film Same Time, Next Year.
Golden Girl
Vivian Howe, a Nantucket author of beach novels and mother of three, is killed by a hit-and-run driver while out running. From the afterlife she watches her family through one last summer and is allowed a few small “nudges” to change what happens, while her final novel holds a secret from her youth.
The Hotel Nantucket
A London billionaire restores a run-down Gilded Age hotel on Nantucket and hires a local, Lizbet Keaton, to run it, with the aim of earning a top rating from an influential travel critic. The hotel also has a resident ghost, a chambermaid who died in a fire there a century earlier.
The Five-Star Weekend
After her husband dies suddenly, the food blogger Hollis Shaw invites her best friend from each stage of her life to a weekend at her Nantucket house, women who have never met one another. Her daughter, a student filmmaker, records what happens.
Swan Song
A flashy new couple, the Richardsons, arrive on Nantucket; within weeks their multimillion-dollar house has burned down and their personal concierge has disappeared. Police chief Ed Kapenash, about to retire, takes one last case, and characters from earlier novels return. It was announced as her final Nantucket novel.
In What Order to Read Elin Hilderbrand
Almost every Hilderbrand novel stands alone, so you can start anywhere and read by mood. Publication order still pays off in one way: recurring figures, above all Chief Ed Kapenash, appear across many books, and Swan Song is written as a farewell to readers who know the earlier ones.
Her two series do need to be read in order. The Winter Street books are Winter Street (2014), Winter Stroll (2015), Winter Storms (2016) and Winter Solstice (2017); the Paradise trilogy, set on St. John in the Virgin Islands rather than Nantucket, runs Winter in Paradise (2018), What Happens in Paradise (2019) and Troubles in Paradise (2020).
A reading path
1. The Perfect Couple (2018)
2. 28 Summers (2020)
3. The Blue Bistro (2005)
4. Winter Street (2014)
5. Swan Song (2024)
Everything Else Elin Hilderbrand Published
Beyond the 14 key books: 18 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other Nantucket novels
10
10 books · 2002–2016
- 2002Nantucket Nightsthree friends, a yearly midnight swim and a disappearance
- 2003Summer Peoplea family summer on the island
- 2006The Love Seasona chef and a family secret on the island
- 2008A Summer Affaira mother of four and an affair during a charity gala
- 2010The Islandfour women on remote Tuckernuck Island
- 2012Summerlandthe aftermath of a graduation-night car crash
- 2013Beautiful Daya wedding planned from a late mother’s notebook
- 2014The Matchmakera woman with a gift for matchmaking and a hidden diagnosis
- 2015The Rumortwo best friends and the island’s gossip
- 2016Here’s to Usthree ex-wives at a celebrity chef’s funeral
Series
6
6 books · 2015–2020
- 2015Winter StrollWinter Street series, book 2
- 2016Winter StormsWinter Street series, book 3
- 2017Winter SolsticeWinter Street series, book 4
- 2018Winter in ParadiseParadise trilogy, book 1, set on St. John
- 2019What Happens in ParadiseParadise trilogy, book 2
- 2020Troubles in ParadiseParadise trilogy, book 3
With Shelby Cunningham
2
2 books · 2025–2026
- 2025The Academya New England boarding school rocked by an anonymous gossip app
- 2026The ThoroughbredsThe Academy series, book 2
The years · 1969–2026
Quick facts about Elin Hilderbrand
- Known for
- Elin Hilderbrand is known for the summer novels set on Nantucket that she published almost every year from 2000 to 2024, which earned her the name “the queen of beach reads”.
- 1969
- Born in Collegeville, Pennsylvania
- 2000
- First novel, The Beach Club
- 2026
- The Thoroughbreds, with her daughter
- Born
- 17 July 1969, Collegeville, Pennsylvania
- Education
- Johns Hopkins University; then a teaching-writing fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop
- Lives
- Nantucket, Massachusetts, where nearly all her novels are set
- Novels
- 30 on her own, 2000–2024; two more with her daughter, Shelby Cunningham
- Adaptation
- The Perfect Couple, Netflix limited series, 2024
- Health
- Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014; double mastectomy
The red mark is 2018: The Perfect Couple, the wedding mystery Netflix adapted in 2024.
How Elin Hilderbrand Writes: One Island, One Summer at a Time
Hilderbrand works on a fixed cycle: one novel a year, published at the start of summer, for almost a quarter of a century. She has said she writes longhand in notebooks, often on the beach itself, and that she starts a book by writing several pages on each main character before drafting a scene.
Most of her novels use the same frame: a single season, a closed group of people — a family, a hotel staff, old friends, a wedding party — and chapters that rotate between their points of view. The island supplies a shared world, and real places such as restaurants and beaches sit alongside invented ones; a few figures, above all police chief Ed Kapenash, move from book to book. In later novels she mixed in other genres: mystery in The Perfect Couple and Swan Song, history in Summer of ’69, a ghost in The Hotel Nantucket.
By 2023 she told AARP she was “flat-out running out of ideas” for Nantucket, which is why Swan Song closed the cycle. For writers who work the same seam of summer, family and friendship, see Authors like Elin Hilderbrand.
Watch
Elin Hilderbrand on Swan Song and what comes next
On the day Swan Song was published, Hilderbrand talks to CBS Mornings about her last Nantucket novel, nearly 25 years of summer books, and what she plans next.
Frequently asked questions about Elin Hilderbrand’s books
How many books has Elin Hilderbrand written?
Thirty novels on her own, from The Beach Club (2000) to Swan Song (2024), plus two co-written with her daughter Shelby Cunningham: The Academy (2025) and The Thoroughbreds (2026). The 14 key books are listed on this page; the rest are under “Everything else”. She has also published a few short stories.
What are Elin Hilderbrand’s books in order?
The key books are The Beach Club (2000), The Blue Bistro (2005), Barefoot (2007), The Castaways (2009), Silver Girl (2011), Winter Street (2014), The Identicals (2017), The Perfect Couple (2018), Summer of ’69 (2019), 28 Summers (2020), Golden Girl (2021), The Hotel Nantucket (2022), The Five-Star Weekend (2023) and Swan Song (2024).
Where should I start with Elin Hilderbrand?
The Perfect Couple (2018): a self-contained mystery set over a Nantucket wedding weekend, and the book behind the Netflix series. If you want a love story instead, start with 28 Summers.
What is Elin Hilderbrand’s most famous book?
The Perfect Couple, thanks to the 2024 Netflix series with Nicole Kidman. 28 Summers and Summer of ’69, a number-one New York Times bestseller, are close behind.
Do Elin Hilderbrand’s books need to be read in order?
No, nearly all of them stand alone. The exceptions are the four Winter Street novels (2014–2017), the Paradise trilogy (2018–2020) and the Academy books with her daughter. Swan Song is more rewarding if you know some of the earlier books, because characters from them return.
What are the Winter Street books in order?
Winter Street (2014), Winter Stroll (2015), Winter Storms (2016) and Winter Solstice (2017), all about the Quinn family and their inn on Nantucket at Christmas.
What are the Paradise books in order?
Winter in Paradise (2018), What Happens in Paradise (2019) and Troubles in Paradise (2020). Unlike almost all her other novels, they are set on St. John in the US Virgin Islands.
Which Elin Hilderbrand books have been adapted?
The Perfect Couple became a six-part Netflix limited series in 2024, starring Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Eve Hewson and Dakota Fanning. The actor Ellen Pompeo has been developing a television version of the Paradise trilogy with ABC; it has not been released.
Is Elin Hilderbrand retiring?
She stopped writing Nantucket novels after Swan Song (2024), her 30th book, but not writing altogether: she has since published The Academy (2025) and The Thoroughbreds (2026), a boarding-school series written with her daughter, Shelby Cunningham.
Is Elin Hilderbrand’s Nantucket a real place?
Yes. Nantucket is an island about 30 miles south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Hilderbrand lives there. Her novels mix real restaurants, beaches and landmarks with invented ones.
What was the Golden Girl controversy?
When Golden Girl came out in June 2021, readers objected to a scene in which two teenage characters joke about hiding in an attic “like Anne Frank”, calling it antisemitic. Hilderbrand apologised, called the line a poor choice, offensive and tasteless, and asked her publisher to remove it from digital editions and future printings.
Footnotes
- Elin Hilderbrand — Wikipedia
- Readers angered over Anne Frank reference in new Hilderbrand novel — Publishers Weekly, 2021
- Elin Hilderbrand interview — AARP, 2023
- 28 Summers — Kirkus Reviews
- Elin Hilderbrand on Swan Song — CBS Mornings, 2024
- The Thoroughbreds — BookBrowse
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“The thing I love the most is reading.”
— Elin Hilderbrand, interview with AARP (2023)
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