It's a hot August Saturday on Nantucket Island. Over the course of the next twenty-four hours, two lives will be transformed forever. Marguerite Beale, former chef of culinary hot spot Les Parapluies, has been out of the public eye for more than a decade. This all changes with a phone call from Marguerite's goddaughter, Renata Knox. Marguerite has not seen Renata since the death of Renata's mother, Candace Harris Knox, fourteen years earlier. And now that Renata is on Nantucket visiting the family of her new fiancé, she takes the opportunity, against her father's wishes, to contact Marguerite in hopes of learning the story of her mother's life--and death. But the events of the day spiral hopelessly out of control for both women, and nothing ends up as planned. Welcome to THE LOVE SEASON, a riveting story that takes place in one day and spans decades; a story that embraces the charming, pristine island of Nantucket, as well as Manhattan, Paris, and Morocco. Elin Hilderbrand's most ambitious novel to date chronicles the famous couplings of real lives: love and friendship, food and wine, deception and betrayal--and forgiveness and healing.


Reviews:

Publishers Weekly:

“Hilderbrand’s fifth book is a fulfilling tale of familial excavation and self-exploration….It’s a refreshing, resonant summertime treat.”

 

Booklist:

“Hilderbrand’s sensitive portrayal of a young motherless woman on a journey of self-discovery, and her guilt-ridden godmother’s attempt to find the courage to confront the past, is very moving.”
 

Entertainment Weekly, July 7 2006:
In a juicy peach of a summer tome, Hilderbrand again alchemizes her three favorite elements food, love, and Nantucket with eminently readable results. In her fifth novel, she interweaves the tales of two women: Marguerite, a retired chef who's mysteriously cut herself off from the world almost entirely, and her estranged goddaughter, Renata, a vivacious 19-year old with an adoring father, a rich and handsome fiancé, and a desperate will to learn about her long-dead mother. While undeniably pulpy at times apparently, the sleepy island is a hotbed of Peyton Place-ish intrigue Season is so gratifying a page-turner you'll forgive its soap opera sins. A- (Leah Greenblatt)

People Magazine, June 26, 2006:
Renata Knox, 19, arrives on Nantucket, Mass. where she was born and her mother died in the company of her new fiancé, preppy rich-boy Cade Driscoll. Renata is hungry, specifically for something only one local chef, her godmother Marguerite Beale, can provide. Marguerite closed her sumptuous restaurant, Les Parapluies, 14 years earlier following the sudden death of her best friend Renata's mother. Against her father's explicit orders that she not contact Marguerite, Renata invites herself to dinner. As Marguerite renews her rituals whipping up garlic aioli in the Cuisinart, wielding her Wusthof against a bunch of fresh basil she reflects on the events that led to her self-exile, and the “whistling gaps a person leaves behind when she dies. Meanwhile, Renata faces powerful stimuli in the form of a hunky houseboy who invites her to the beach, a white roadside cross that she realizes marks the spot where her mother died and an overbearing future mother-in-law.  Multiple pots boil over, but Renata eventually gets fed exactly what she needs, and readers in search of summer fare that's a cut above the usual beach provisions do too. Hilderbrand, who wrote 2002's Nantucket Nights, serves up a mouthwatering menu, keeps the Veuve Clicquot flowing and tops it all with a dollop of mystery that will have even drowsy sunbathers turning pages until the very satisfying end. 4 stars, Critic's Choice. (Sue Corbett)

Elin Hilderbrand grew up in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, and is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was a teaching/writing fellow. Her short fiction has appeared in Seventeen, The Massachusetts Review, and The Colorado Review. She lives with her husband and their three children in Nantucket, Massachusetts. This is her fifth novel.

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