by Elin Hildebrand

What a fun beach read. It was light and airy mixed with a little gossipy and drama. Hildebrand historically is a great author to me. If you haven’t checked out any of your books, you should.

This one introduces Grace and Madeline who are best friends who are married to Eddie and Trevor respectively. Grace loves her garden and has hired Benton Coe as her garden expert so her garden can be a prize sight to see in Nantucket; her husband is a failing realtor. Madeline is a novelist who has writer’s block, so she rents an apartment to try to create a creative space for her writing juices to flow. Grace has twin girls Hope and Allegra; Allegra dates Madeline’s son Brick.

Drama ensues when Allegra gets into trouble and some of her secrets become very public. Grace falls in love with Benton and then becomes inspiration for Madeline’s newest novel, unbeknownst to Grace. Eddie is getting into more and more debt, so he gets tricked into a “quick and easy” money scheme that eventually is his demise.

Hildebrand capitalizes on the drama that small towns can have with the rumors that ensue when the game of telephone occurs. The relationships in the book and emotional character development is excellent, the ending was a bit of a flop for me. It was a little flat and kept me wondering a little more what the point of the whole rest of the book was. Don’t let that deter you from reading it, I still gave it a five-star review!

What do you like for in a good ending? Do you like a suspenseful one? Abrupt? Surprising? For me, I don’t like abrupt flat endings, but I’m open to different kinds of endings, especially if its a series!!

#TheRumor #Goodreads