Book Giveaway: The Island

Romantic. Interesting. Funny. Tragic. Hopeful. The words describing Elin Hilderbrand's latest summer novel are varied and sundry. I have been reading Ms. Hilderbrand religiously since the publication of her first book, The Beach Club, ten years ago. All of her stories are set on the beautiful island of Nantucket, off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a place I really should have visited by now, being a native New Englander myself. With The Island, Elin dips her toes into the Atlantic and takes readers on an even more magical summer escape, Tuckernuck Island, a half-mile and 80 years from Nantucket.
After thirteen years, the recently divorced Birdie Cousins is returning to her family's summer home on Tuckernuck, accompanied by her two adult daughters, Chess and Tate, and her widowed sister, India. They will spend the month of July taking cold showers and cooking over a camp stove, an almost Thoreau-like existence repeating the happy summers of their childhoods. This bonding time is ostensibly to support Chess, who has just experienced three life-changing events, breaking off her engagement, the death of her former fiance just weeks later, and walking out on her career as the youngest editor ever at Glamorous Home magazine. The downward-spiraling depression has completely engulfed Chess who sublets her apartment, moves to her mother's home, and after shaving all of her hair off, stays in bed for days at a time.

But Chess's supporters each have their own demons and ghosts traveling with them, unbeknown to the others. India, a successful museum curator in the Philadelphia art world still re-hashes the suicide of her husband fifteen years earlier. Now she potentially has a new romance, with a young female artist half her age. Birdie, while excited and thrilled to be back at her beloved Tuckernuck with her sister and daughters, has wistfully left Henry, her first beau since her divorce, behind in Connecticut. For Tate, the month at Tuckernuck will bring her back to Barrett, the golden boy of her teenage dreams, against whom all other men have come up short.
Tate spends her days in exercise, while Birdie and India take up the smoking habit of their youth, as they chat and needlepoint. Chess, in her attic hideaway writes in a journal, putting down the story of her relationship with Michael Morgan, and giving herself a better perspective on both Michael's actions and her own. As each woman works through her quandries and memories, they begin to share their stories with each other, creating a bond that will be stronger than the old New England blood running in all their veins.

Told through the eyes of each of the women, the story of their significant Tuckernuck summer makes readers want to leave television, cell phones, and laptops behind and spend a month taking walks, lounging in the sun, drinking wine and reading, on an island with no paved roads or public utilitles. Although I don't know if a die-hard blogger could handle that!
I loved The Island so much that the folks at Hachette Publishing have given me a copy to giveaway!! As always, I'll make it simple and give you several chances to win.

• Leave a comment saying you'd like to win. Be sure to include a way for me to contact you.
• Become a Follower of this blog, or of @ebogie on Twitter, or let me know you're already a follower.
• Tweet about the giveaway. You can tweet once a day!
• Leave a separate comment for each entry, for a total of 4+ entries.
• Winner will be announced Wednesday, September 1.

If you're a fan of audio books, visit Sheila at Book Journey. She has 3 audios of The Island to give away!
This review is linked to Cym Lowell's Book Review Party Wednesday. There's lots of great books to discover, and he's giving away some great books, too!