By Marjorie Preston
“Swan Song”
By Elin Hilderbrand
Little, Brown and Co.
It’s hard to imagine a summer without a new beach book from Elin Hilderbrand. But the queen of the Nantucket novel has ended the long-running, bestselling series with the aptly named “Swan
Song.”
After 35 years on the local police force, Chief Ed Kapanesh is days away from a well-deserved retirement—until a multimillion-dollar mansion goes up in flames, and a young woman goes missing from the homeowners’ yacht.
Reluctantly, Ed takes up the case, and is plunged into messy dramas involving the upstart Richardsons, who are new to the island and determined to infiltrate its elite in-group; their personal assistant, Coco, who has vanished; and islanders like realtor Fast Eddie and local gossip Blond Sharon, supporting players in this potboiler.
“Swan Song” includes elements of whodunit against Hilderbrand’s usual backdrop: the rich and privileged of Nantucket. It all makes for a fun summer reading.
“The Housemaid”
By Frieda McFadden
Grand Central Publishing
After a long run of bad luck, Millie has found her dream job, and the start of a whole new life. The ex-con and parolee, who’s been living in her car, is hired as live-in housekeeper and nanny for the wealthy Winchesters.
But the couple’s gated mansion isn’t the haven she imagined. Stay-at-home mom Nina is flinty and demanding, as is her bratty child. Handsome husband Andrew Winchester is seductively hard to resist. And Millie is confined to a tiny attic room, with a door that only locks from the outside.
The setup is ripe with suspense, and when Millie learns secrets about Nina, the tension ratchets up to a fever pitch. The ending is a true shocker.
“If You Would Have Told Me”
By John Stamos
Henry Holt and Co.
For people of a certain age, Stamos is the swaggering actor who played Blackie Parrish on “General Hospital,” Uncle Jesse on “Full House,” and Tony Gates on “ER.” But then his star faded.
By 2015, Stamos was no longer one of Hollywood’s most-wanted hunks. His marriage to model Rebecca Romijn was on the skids. He drank to dull the pain. He couldn’t get a gig. It took a well-publicized DUI for the actor to take stock of his life and resolve to start anew.
The son of a restaurant owner was expected to stay in the family business. But Stamos had bigger dreams, and the kind of hustle and charm to make them come true. In mid-life, he reclaimed that drive, made a comeback on Broadway, and found a happier ending with his new wife and family.
Anyone who lived through the actor’s many incarnations—as in, anyone who followed pop culture in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s—should enjoy this recollection. Its lesson, as Stamos concludes in the end, is that, “What breaks us up rebuilds us. Our darkest days become our most valuable teachers.”
“Dickens and Prince”
By Nick Hornby
Riverhead Books
The author of “About a Boy” draws parallels between the most influential author of the Victorian age and a musical provocateur whose career spanned genres, challenged gender roles, and produced some of the most enduring music of the 20th century.
Hornby compares artists who lived 150 years apart, occupied different creative realms, and outwardly could not have seemed more different. He identifies striking parallels. In childhood, both Dickens and Prince endured poverty and abandonment. In their 20s, both shot from obscurity to worldwide fame. Both became known for their prolific output. And while neither was conventionally handsome, each was known as a great lover in his day. Then there was the genius and drive that led each to create massive bodies of work.
“Dickens and Prince” reveals the lives of two artists in a way that enlightens, entertains, and, yes, inspires.
“Annie Crow Knoll: Sunrise”
By Gail Priest
Hayson Publishing
At the Knoll on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Liz and Luke Atkinson lease vacation cabins for the summer season.
Their young daughter Annie is a charmingly contrary little girl with a pet crow named Oliver. Through Annie’s eyes, readers observe the lives of the adults in this quirky place: a reclusive artist named Packard Marlboro; a strong but silent handyman named Bo; the cabin dwellers, with all their eccentricities; and Annie’s own parents, who harbor secrets they dare not tell.
The story follows Annie from adolescent to young adult, and creates a vivid and genuine world that will carry you along like a tide.
