Winter Street: A Novel
I picked up Winter Street on a whim from the library, thinking maybe a Christmas-themed book would help get me into the holiday spirit. I also had never read Elin Hilderbrand, so it seemed like a good reason to give her a try. I expected a formulaic Hallmark story, but this was a bit more. It was still light, cozy reading, but this story of a family who owns a Nantucket inn (confession: I really want to spend Christmas there) delved into some weightier issues and relationships--with a slight comic edge (one of a characters ran off with the inn's Santa Claus!). The family is dysfunctional--relationship issues abound, one character is facing jail--but overall likable and kind to one another. It's the first in a four-book series and the first two have ended on cliffhangers, so of course I need to finish out the rest.
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Publisher’s Description
Kelley Quinn is the owner of Nantucket’s Winter Street Inn and the proud father of four, all of them grown and living in varying states of disarray. Patrick, the eldest, is a hedge fund manager with a guilty conscience. Kevin, a bartender, is secretly sleeping with a French housekeeper named Isabelle. Ava, a school teacher, is finally dating the perfect guy but can’t get him to commit. And Bart, the youngest and only child of Kelley’s second marriage to Mitzi, has recently shocked everyone by joining the Marines.
As Christmas approaches, Kelley is looking forward to getting the family together for some quality time at the inn. But when he walks in on Mitzi kissing Santa Claus (or the guy who’s playing Santa at the inn’s annual party), utter chaos descends. With the three older children each reeling in their own dramas and Bart unreachable in Afghanistan, it might be up to Kelley’s ex-wife, nightly news anchor Margaret Quinn, to save Christmas at the Winter Street Inn.
Before the mulled cider is gone, the delightfully dysfunctional Quinn family will survive a love triangle, an unplanned pregnancy, a federal crime, a small house fire, many shots of whiskey, and endless rounds of Christmas caroling, in this heart-warming novel about coming home for the holidays.