The Island
Elin Hilderbrand

Hachette Audio
July 6, 2010/ ISBN 160788240X
Chick Lit / Contemporary Ficiton/ Massachusetts
/ Audio CD / Runtime: 15 hrs., 14 min.
Amazon

Reviewed by Jo Rogers

Elin Hilderbrand brings us another of her summer books that make good reading while you’re on vacation. This story begins with Birdie Cousins getting ready for her first date with Hank. In fact, it was the first date she’d had since her thirty-year marriage to Grant Cousins ended in divorce. She was nervous, but Hank was special. He was also technically married, but his wife languished in a nursing home, a victim of Alzheimer’s. She no longer knew Hank and his children when she saw them.

Later that night, Birdie’s oldest daughter, Chess, called to tell her she had broken off her engagement to Michael Morgan. She didn’t tell her why. A day or two later, Chess called again, this time to say she’d quit her prestigious job and was on her way home. When she got there, she was thin and unkempt. She walked in her mother’s front door and dropped her cell phone into the trash can. She said she was done and she didn’t want to talk about it. Birdie immediately called her own sister, India. The two of them planned a vacation to the place they always went to regroup and heal, primitive and privately owned Tuckernuck Island. Chess’s younger sister, Tate, was to go with them.

The Island is a well written novel that covers three love stories. Though I’m not a fan of romance, this is an interesting book. The women are typical of the denizens of the romance novel. However, the tragedy that brings them to Tuckernuck is unusual. The outcome of each romantic relationship is as individual as the women involved. Not all of them come to the expected end, especially not Chess’. If you love summer romances, you’ll adore The Island.”