The Love Season

April 10, 2006
Hilderbrand's fifth book is a fulfilling tale of familial self-exploration. Marguerite is a chef on Nantucket, Mass., who hasn't cooked for anyone since she sold her restaurant 14 years ago, following the death of her best friend, Candace, and her own brief stint in a psychiatric hospital. A quirky, endearingly insecure recluse, Marguerite is startled from her comfortable solitude by a late-night phone call from Renata Knox, Candace's 19-year-old daughter and Marguerite's estranged goddaughter, who is visiting the island with her wealthy fiancé. Renata's question, "Aunt Daisy?" sends Marguerite scrambling to come to terms with her past. The novel takes place over the day Marguerite spends preparing a lavish meal, for the first time in years, to welcome Renata, whose own problems include an overbearing mother-in-law-to-be and an incomplete sense of her own mother. Desperate for nurturing and guidance, Renata turns to Marguerite, who knew her mother best, and whom her father has forbidden Renata to see her entire life. The story is crafted as expertly as Marguerite's dishes, seasoned with well-measured flashbacks and convincing details of island life and the restaurant business. It's a refreshing, resonant summertime treat.

April 15, 2006
Here's a classic beach book with a summer locale (Nantucket), a sanctified dead mother, a child searching out the mysteries of her past, impossibly attractive and/or wealthy cast members, and some love and sex thrown into the mix. Renata is just 19, lovely and mostly innocent, but, impetuously, she has become engaged to Cade, a preppy child of Nantucket, and so they travel there to meet his rich parents. Over the course of one (very long) day, she arranges to meet her godmother, whose involvement in her mother's death when she was a tot has caused her father to forbid Renata from ever meeting her. Godmother Marguerite had a sumptuous restaurant on the island that was abruptly closed when Renata's mother was struck and killed by a drunk driver while jogging, and that story is very slowly revealed in flashbacks. A good page-turner that doesn't involve too much effort on the part of the reader." -Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., VA"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2006
Despite her father's warning, Renata Knox wants to go to Nantucket with her new fiance to meet her godmother, Marguerite, who has been a mystery to her. Finally, she can visit the place where her parents met and fell in love--and where her mother died. Renata also experiences the superficial, upscale world of her fiance's family. Marguerite's solitary life is turned upside down. As the former restaurateur prepares for one of the most important dinners in her life, she reminisces about her flawed past and worries about what to tell the daughter of her beloved friend. Hilderbrand intertwines the separate discoveries of the two women as they examine what is important to them and consider who they want to please and what pleases them. 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)