The Hotel Nantucket

The latest from the prolific and popular Hilderbrand (following Golden Girl) takes a satisfying look behind the scenes of a luxury Nantucket hotel. London-based billionaire Xavier Darling buys and lavishly renovates the long-derelict Hotel Nantucket, hoping to win the coveted “Five Keys” rating from an Instagram travel influencer. When he needs a local general manager, he hires Lizbet Keaton, who doesn’t have hotel experience but previously ran a successful restaurant for 15 years, until she was betrayed by her business partner boyfriend. Staff shortages at the Hotel Nantucket (perhaps an oblique reference to COVID-era labor shortages) drive Lizbet to hire a raft of similarly inexperienced workers—disparate characters with slowly revealed backstories and secrets. The hotel turns out to be haunted by the ghost of a young chambermaid who was murdered there a hundred years earlier; to end the haunting, the hotel staff will have to help the ghost get closure. Beyond the intrigue, readers will learn something of the way a luxury hotel runs, including the long hours and dedication of the staff.