Publishers Weekly
09/24/2018
Hilderbrand’s breezy family drama, the first of a series, plays out against the pristine beaches and sparkling waters of St. John in the Caribbean. Pragmatic Iowa City magazine editor Irene Steele has finished restoring her beloved Queen Anne home, leaving her eager for another project. Her doting husband, Russ, travels often for work and her adult sons, Cash and Baker, juggle jobs and family. When she gets a call that Russ has been killed in a helicopter crash in the Virgin Islands along with a woman named Rosie Small, she’s devastated and shocked to learn that he owned a lavish home there. Accompanied by Cash and Baker, Irene heads to St. John and discovers that Russ was leading a separate life, causing her to question everything she thought she knew about her marriage. As usual, Hilderbrand’s characters are as familiar as old friends, and her smooth prose is as tender and welcoming. The questions surrounding Russ’s death and double life provide suspense, and readers will be happy to lose themselves in paradise while getting to know these irresistible new characters. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
PRAISE FOR WINTER IN PARADISE:
“I will just say that, 24 hours after I started this book, I purchased its sequel, What Happens in Paradise, and I did not leave either book to be enjoyed by strangers at the end of my vacation.”
—Elisabeth Egan, New York Times
"What do you do once you've become queen of the Summer novel and mastered the art of the Christmas novel? You start a new series, of course! This Fall, the incomparable Elin Hilderbrand brings us to St. John for the first novel in her new The Paradise series...Another compulsively readable hit by Hilderbrand."—Brenda Janowitz, PopSugar
"A new series from Nantucket author Elin Hilderbrand-that's set in St. John!"—Modern Mrs. Darcy
"With great verve, [Hilderbrand] has done it again with her latest novel, WINTER IN PARADISE, the first book in a planned trilogy. She is witty and engaging, and keeps her readers intrigued with a memorable set of characters...As always, she delivers a story with much detail, weaving her characters and storylines expertly...Be prepared to read a fast-paced and entertaining novel for several hours, which will keep you longing for the second book in the series."—Bookreporter
"The perfect vacation read."—Hasty Book List
"As she does in her books set on Nantucket, Hilderbrand excels at establishing a setting (the food! the luxury! the sea turtles!) that will inspire wanderlust...Hilderbrand is the queen of the summer blockbuster; her fans will be thrilled that she's looking to take on winter."—Susan Maguire, Booklist
"This fast-paced novel offers the voices of several different characters, as well as a hefty load of intrigue."—Nancy Carty Lepri, New York Journal of Books
Modern Mrs. Darcy
A new series from Nantucket author Elin Hilderbrand-that's set in St. John!
New York Journal of Books Nancy Carty Lepri
This fast-paced novel offers the voices of several different characters, as well as a hefty load of intrigue.
Bookreporter
With great verve, [Hilderbrand] has done it again with her latest novel, WINTER IN PARADISE, the first book in a planned trilogy. She is witty and engaging, and keeps her readers intrigued with a memorable set of characters...As always, she delivers a story with much detail, weaving her characters and storylines expertly...Be prepared to read a fast-paced and entertaining novel for several hours, which will keep you longing for the second book in the series.
Hasty Book List
The perfect vacation read.
New York Journal of Books
This fast-paced novel offers the voices of several different characters, as well as a hefty load of intrigue.”
Booklist Susan Maguire
As she does in her books set on Nantucket, Hilderbrand excels at establishing a setting (the food! the luxury! the sea turtles!) that will inspire wanderlust...Hilderbrand is the queen of the summer blockbuster; her fans will be thrilled that she's looking to take on winter.
Booklist
As she does in her books set on Nantucket, Hilderbrand excels at establishing a setting that will inspire wanderlust…Hilderbrand is the queen of the summer blockbuster; her fans will be thrilled that she’s looking to take on winter.”
PopSugar
Another compulsively readable hit by Hilderbrand.”
PopSugar Brenda Janowitz
What do you do once you've become queen of the Summer novel and mastered the art of the Christmas novel? You start a new series, of course! This Fall, the incomparable Elin Hilderbrand brings us to St. John for the first novel in her new The Paradise series...Another compulsively readable hit by Hilderbrand.
Kirkus Reviews
2018-08-21
When a Midwestern businessman is killed in a helicopter crash in the Caribbean, his wife and sons learn that he had a secret life.
The prodigious Hilderbrand (The Perfect Couple, 2018, etc.), author of high-style beach reads set on Nantucket, looks to a new island for her 22nd novel—St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. In an introduction, she explains that she has been going to St. John to write for years now and has finally decided to break the mold and share her love of the place in her fiction. However, the story begins in Iowa City, where magazine editor Irene Steele is ringing in the New Year alone, as her husband, Russell, is away on business. The next day she receives a call from a secretary named Marilyn Monroe informing her of his death, and before long, she and her sons, Baker and Cash, are on their way to St. John, a place they've barely heard of, where they will be escorted to a $15 million villa that Russell apparently owned and shared for years with an also-dead longtime lover, Rosie. They will meet Huck, Rosie's stepfather, and Ayers, her best friend, and develop romantic entanglements accordingly. As in the Nantucket novels, Hilderbrand delights in studding her fiction with the real, whether she's telling us what books the characters are reading—the new Curtis Sittenfeld, Lilac Girls, and The Hate U Give, among others—or sending them to actual shops, hotels, restaurants, and bars, with food and drink described in detail. We learn a great deal about the characters' pasts, but little light is shed on the shocking secret at the core of the book, and suspicions raised about Russ Steele's business dealings and the details of the helicopter crash are also left unresolved. Perhaps further volumes of the planned trilogy will tackle all this, but it's a lot to leave up in the air.
The island setting and characters are done in classic Hilderbrand style, but the balance of backstory to resolution seems off.
