by When I reach Elin Hilderbrand on a recent sunny afternoon, she’s in her happy place: a Nantucket beach.
I hear waves rolling in, an occasional gull, over the phone as Hilderbrand talks from
40th Pole
beach — one of the featured stops in her new Nantucket travel guide.
“The Blue Book
” (2025), Hilderbrand’s ultimate insider’s guide to Nantucket — with charming illustrations by Meredith Hanson — is already a national bestseller. (I want to live in Hanson’s map.)
While Nantucket’s “Queen of the Beach Read” retired from Nantucket fiction
last year
, it feels natural that she’d dip a toe into Nantucket nonfiction, with a guide to her personal favorite spots — from restaurants to shops, hotels to beaches.
“Readers — especially my readers — want to come and see Nantucket. They may be here for a day, but they want to hit all the spots I talk about in my books,” Hilderbrand, 55, tells me.
To read a Hilderbrand novel is to be transported. That’s her magic. Through the Nantucketer’s words, I’ve browsed summer tomatoes and corn at Bartlett’s Farm, pedaled my 10-speed to Jetties Beach, danced all night at The Chicken Box, lowered my Jeep’s tire pressure to drive on the sand.
Tying in with the guide book is an actual
Elin Hilderbrand’s Blue Book Tour
, led by her sister, Heather Thorpe. (Love it.)
I caught Hilderbrand in her natural habitat, fresh off a trip to L.A. where she visited the set of
“The Five-Star Weekend,”
her 2023 bestseller now being adapted into a Peacock series starring Jennifer Garner and Chloë Sevigny. She was gearing up for a tour promoting her upcoming novel
“The Academy”
(Sept. 16).
I can break some Elin news here: “The Academy” — a dark academia co-written with her daughter Shelby Cunningham — is already in development for TV, Hilderbrand tells me. In September, she says Peacock’s upcoming adaptation of Hilderbrand’s “The Five-Star Weekend” will film on Nantucket. You can also catch her in Boston for a few events in October, including the
Boston Book Fest
, she tells me.
We talked island must-stops, her growing list of film and series adaptations (yes, plural), her next novel, and summer reading picks. Bonus: you can get your book signed. Hilderbrand signs copies every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to noon at Nantucket’s
Mitchell’s Book Corner
.
Interview has been edited and condensed.
Elin Hilderbrand:
Straight Wharf Fish
is my new favorite. I love it there. It’s the ideal clam shack,
but elevated
. It used to be a fish market. They’ve turned it into this super cute restaurant [with] a deck, counter where you can go in and get things to go, or there’s a sit-down.
A post shared by Anne Malhere (@annemalhere)
Also, on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, my sister started leading the “
Elin Hilderbrand Blue Book Tour
.” People can hop on the bus, she narrates and tells stories. They go by places mentioned in my books. It ends at
The Chicken Box
. It’s really cute and authentic.
If you go now, the climbing roses are just probably hitting their peak. Most of the houses in the village are
tin
y — they look like
little doll houses
—
they’re covered
with
climbing roses
.
I’d say it’s like Disney World, except it’s the opposite because it’s so tasteful. They have gorgeous gardens and picket fences. The tiny village fronts the water. There’s a
teeny, tiny
commercial center. It’s painfully cute.
People who live there are very protective. I live on the other side of the island, and I feel like [laughs] I’m trespassing because they ar
e very
protective.
The parking lot borders a farm. Some months there are fields and fields of flowers. The brewery is made of three barns — one for wine, one for beer, one for spirits. There’s a brick courtyard, picnic tables, live music, food trucks.
It’s the ultimate après beach place to chill. Have a cocktail, lobster rolls, oysters, listen to music outside with dogs and kids. It should not be missed.
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It’s gorgeous. The flower fields are something out of a Renoir painting. You walk in, it’s a big market with an e
normous
greenhouse. They have every plant known to man. The market has tomatoes, this enormous crib of corn, lettuce, home-grown vegetables, fresh herbs, buckets of cut flowers. They do prepared foods — that’s where I get my lobster salad. They make homemade pies. I always keep a pie at home for the kids.
The Chicken Box is the one place that the Elin Hilderbrand Blue Book tour stops. They go around on the bus, see the spots mentioned, then end at The Chicken Box for a Champagne toast — which is so funny because you’d never drink Champagne there. It’s a dive bar. I drink wine almost exclusively, but if I’m at the Chicken Box, I’ll get a Corona. There’s no food, no chicken. They have live music, pool tables and darts.
Smith’s Point
is often closed until August, because the piping plovers nest. After nesting, it opens and I’ll go every single day. You can drive on [to the beach] and choose whether you’re on the ocean side with big waves or the south side that’s calm. It’s the only beach on Nantucket where you get both.
That’s hard. If it’s a beautiful sunny day, go to
Sandbar at Jetties Beach
: open air, sand, fantastic food. For dinner, my favorite restaurant is
The Nautilus
, but you can’t get in. [laughs] It’s small and so popular. If you want a fancy sit-down French Riviera feel,
Galley Beach
is amazing.
Two things. One: I was running out of material and didn’t want to repeat myself. Two: the schedule I was keeping was brutal. I thought to myself, “Why am I still doing this?” I wanted to retire while the books were still good. Best thing I ever did. And there are lots of other people writing summer books.
“Mansion Beach” by Meg Mitchell Moore
is set on Block Island. I’ve never been to Block Island, but now I want to go. It’s meticulously described.
“Far and Away” by Amy Poeppel.
It’s a house-swap book, sort of like Nancy Myers’s [film] “The Holiday.” It takes place in Dallas and Berlin. So charming.
Loved it. Amity’s novels are next-level. “Heartwood” is a masterpiece.
-
20 best beach reads for summer 2025
Yes. It’s told from multiple points of view — the head of school, the teachers, the students. My daughter Shelby went to St George’s School in Newport, so she had the lived-experience. She also read the novel for authentic voice, basically saying: “No one my age would ever say this, mom.”
It’s set at fictional Tiffin Academy, a school that’s seen better days. They were ranked 19th — suddenly, they’re ranked 2nd. They can’t quite figure out the enormous jump. People at other boarding schools are angry and start inquiring. Our Head of School is dealing with that.
Meanwhile, everyone’s dealing with the loss of a sophomore who [dies by suicide] in the [dorms.] It’s not a YA book. It’s an adult book.
Thrilling. They built a Nantucket house and a Wellesley house, the two locations from the book. Jennifer Garner was with me, and Chloe Sevigny. We looked at the houses. The details are really spot on. I was very happy. It’s shooting in LA now, with Jennifer Garner, Chloë Sevigny, Regina Hall, Gemma Chan, and D’Arcy Carden. They’re going to film in Nantucket in September.
“28 Summers,”
“The Academy,” my
Paradise series
, the
Winter Street
Holiday series and “Hotel Nantucket” are all in development.
I first came here in the summer of ‘93. I was living in New York City. Because I’d grown up going to the Cape, I was familiar with the aesthetic. But Nantucket is just a little more special — it’s harder to get to, it’s smaller.
I was living in a share-house; it wasn’t fancy. My roommate taught me how to cook; we went to all these restaurants. I bought a 10-speed bike and rode to the beach to read all day. I walked to The Chicken Box. My boyfriend had a Jeep — we’d put the top down, watch the sunset, grab sandwiches. Everything about that summer was very romantic. I moved here permanently in the summer of 1994. I’d fallen in love with all of it.
Lauren Daley is a freelance culture writer and regular Boston.com contributor. She can be reached at
[email protected]
. She tweets
@laurendaley1
, and Instagrams at
@laurendaley1
. Read more stories on Facebook
here
.
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Lauren Daley is a longtime culture journalist. As a regular contributor to Boston.com, she interviews A-list musicians, actors, authors and other major artists.
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