Elin Hilderbrand Read-Alikes
Is it even Summer without a new Elin Hilderbrand book? While you’re waiting for her newest, here are some similar books and authors!
July 6, 2023
While Elin Hilderbrand’s characters change from novel to novel, her setting remains consistent – the historic island of Nantucket. Using the island as a jumping off point, Hilderbrand’s works offer the hallmarks of an ideal summer vacation read: romance, friendship, a beautiful setting, conflict and characters facing personal challenges.
While rife with tales of people living privileged lifestyle, Hilderbrand grounds her stories in topics that will feel familiar to all women – love, illness, friendship, and family relationships.
Author Read-Alikes
Looking for something similar to Elin Hilderbrand? Here are nine authors suggested by NoveList, our favorite book recommendation database.
- Nancy Thayer: Elin Hilderbrand and Nancy Thayer both write novels that feature characters dealing with the issues that face every woman; love, death, family and friendship. Both authors write novels that are character-driven and set on the island of Nantucket—Nanci Milone Hill, Novelist
- J. Courtney Sullivan: Both authors focus on women’s lives and relationships in character-driven novels. Their leisurely-paced writing is emotional and sometimes bittersweet as characters’ pasts are explored and secrets unearthed. The realistic complexities of the characters’ lives and problems makes them easy to relate to regardless of the novels’ settings—Lauren Havens, Novelist
- Emily Giffin: Both Elin Hilderbrand and Emily Giffin write emotionally engaging stories about relatablewomen navigating the complexities of their lives and relationships. Though the characters faceserious situations, the books never become maudlin and always end on a hopeful and heartwarmingnote.—Halle Carlson, Novelist
- Marissa Stapley: Readers who delight in engaging, female-centered stories that tackle the complexities ofpersonal, familial, and marital relationships should check out the novels of Marissa Stapley and ElinHilderbrand. Whether writing emotionally resonant beach reads or suspenseful mysteries, bothauthors typically choose to set their page-turning novels in appealing locales.—Catherine Coles, Novelist
- Helen Fielding: Both authors focus on women’s lives and their often complicated relationships. WhileHelen Fielding’s novels employ a sillier humor, both authors write emotionally engaging books withcharacter-driven plots. Their novels are easy-to-read choices for summer vacations.—Lauren Havens, Novelist
- Jamie Brenner: Elin Hilderbrand and Jamie Brenner write engrossing stories about women grappling withfamily drama, secrets, identity, and romance all set at picturesque seaside locales. Though theirnarratives are straightforward and easy to read, the stories are emotionally resonant and delve intoserious topics such as infidelity, grief, and loss.—Halle Carlson, Novelist
- Mary Kay Andrews: Elin Hilderbrand and Mary Kay Andrews write breezy reads set on the Northeastern(Hilderbrand) or Southern (Andrews) coast. Their heroines are often escaping from their lives wherethey’ve experienced a setback to regroup at the beach and while there find renewal and hope.Andrews’ stories often include humor and wacky hijinks.—Halle Carlson, Novelist
- Meg Mitchell Moore: Elin Hilderbrand and Meg Mitchell Moore write novels that focus on women who aresearching for something in their lives — personal fulfillment, closure, or simply contentment. Often setin coastal locations, their moving novels evoke a relaxed, vacation-y vibe, while also delving intoserious matters of the heart.—Halle Carlson, Novelist
- Phoebe Fox: These authors’ works are heartwarming, and they have the genre “relationship fiction”; andthe subjects “conflict in families,” “extramarital affairs,” and “family secrets.”—Novelist
Summer Love
Nancy Thayer
Reuniting 26 years after an amazing summer in Nantucket, four friends realize life hasn’t worked out the way they had all hoped as they confront the past, while their children, exploring the island together, experience love and heartbreak, and forge lifelong bonds just as their parents did years ago.
Maine
J Courtney Sullivan
Descending on a family beach house won in a bet years earlier, three generations of women gradually impart difficult respective secrets including a pregnancy, a terrible crush and a deeply held resentment for past misdeeds.
Meant To Be
Emily Giffin
When Joe Kingley, the free-spirited son of American royalty, and Cate Cooper, a famous model, have a chance encounter that leads to an instant and intense connection, they wonder if their relationship can survive the glare of the spotlight and the so-called Kingsley Curse.
Things To Do When It’s Raining
Marissa Stapley
Summoned back to their hometown when the elderly people who raised them begin to decline, Mae and Gabe navigate the difficult reasons behind why they chose lives apart from one another at the same time their bond is further strained by emerging secrets.
Drawing Home
Jamie Brenner
The best-selling author of The Forever Summer offers another literary celebration of summer that features an unexpected inheritance, a promise broken and four lives changed forever.
Hello, Summer
Mary Kay Andrews
When the dream job she has pursued all her adult life suddenly disappears, an ambitious journalist returns to her family’s small-town newspaper before witnessing a car accident that ends the life of a local war hero.
Vacationland
Meg Mitchell Moore
While staying at her parents’ house in Maine, Louisa must unravel a family mystery, while newly arrived Kristie cannot keep her various lives from colliding forever, and as these two women cross paths, they will ask themselves what they are owed and what they owe others.
The Way We Weren’t
Phoebe Fox
An unlikely friendship between a septuagenarian and a younger woman becomes a story of broken trust, lost love, and the unexpected blooming of hope against the longest odds.
The Boardwalk Bookshop
Susan Mallery
Three best friends brought together by chance, bookshop owners Bree, Mikki and Ashley each get a chance for a new beginning and a love to last a lifetime when they fight for what they really want.
The Bookish Life Of Nina Hill
Abbi Waxman
Nina Hill enjoys living quietly with a job at a bookstore and her small circle of friends, until a brand-new family, as well as a persistent suitor, enter her life and change everything.
The Secret Life Of Violet Grant
Beatriz Williams
Defying the privilege of her 1960s Fifth Avenue family to pursue a job with a style magazine, recent college graduate Vivian Schuyler discovers a secret about an aunt she never knew who at the dawn of World War I fled her oppressive marriage to pursue an audacious goal.
Evvie Drake Starts Over
Linda Holmes
Young widow Evvie Drake and major league pitcher Dean Tenney, who has lost his game and needs a chance to reset his life, form an unlikely relationship when Dean moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie’s house.
Dreams Of Falling
Karen White
Forced by her mother’s disappearance to return to her South Carolina hometown, Larkin uncovers the story of a fateful friendship shared among three young women 50 years earlier. By the best-selling author of The Sound of Glass.
You Me Everything
Catherine Isaac
A decade after leaving the disinterested father of her baby, Jessica is convinced by her terminally ill mother to make room for the child’s father in their lives and embarks on a summer-long trip to France, where she visits the hotel her ex runs.
The High Season
Judy Blundell
Forced to rent out her family’s seaside Long Island home every summer just so they can afford to keep it, Ruthie goes to extreme lengths to protect the life she loves in the wake of a suddenly estranged marriage, the return of an old flame, and her teen daughter’s destructive relationship.
Lost And Found
Danielle Steel
Spurred by old memories and a life-changing accident, Madison embarks on a cross-country adventure to reconnect with three very different men to reevaluate her past choices.
Cottage By The Sea
Debbie Macomber
Returning to the Pacific Northwest after a tragedy, Annie Marlow begins to heal, with help from Keaton, a local painter who offers comfort and reprieve from her grief.
My Ex-Best Friend’s Wedding
Wendy Wax
A mother’s secret and a wedding dress passed down through generations unravels the tangled threads of betrayal that ended a best friendship between a bride-to-be writer and a bookstore owner grappling with the realities of marriage.
The Friends We Keep
Jane Green
Reconciling thirty years after college, three friends reunite at their college reunion and have a second chance at happiness, until a dark secret changes everything.
Queen Bee
Dorothea Benton Frank
A Sullivan’s Island beekeeper navigates her demanding hypochondriac mother and flamboyant rival sister while immersing herself in the lives of two young neighbor boys and their widowed father.
Feels Like Falling
Kristy Woodson Harvey
After losing her job, breaking up with her boyfriend and moving out with nowhere to go, Diana Harrington’s luck changes when she is offered an empty guest house by the woman who inadvertently got her fired.
The Bookshop By The Bay
Pamela Kelley
Jess loves her work as a high-profile lawyer in Charleston. But when her marriage implodes, she retreats to her childhood home on Cape Cod with her thirty-year-old daughter, Caitlin, hoping to regroup with her longtime best friend, Alison.
One Perfect Summer
Brenda Novak
Discovering the existence of two siblings in the wake of a DNA test that was supposed to be a joke, Serenity meets her mysterious sisters before her search for answers becomes complicated by divorce and romantic politics.
Distant Shores
Kristin Hannah
When her daughters leave for college and her husband lands the job of his dreams, Elizabeth Shore struggles to renew her dreams and passion for life.
Firefly Beach
Luanne Rice
Hoping to put the tragedy, betrayal, and heartbreak of the past behind them, three sisters–Caroline, Clea, and Skye–gather at Firefly Hill, their childhood home for the summer, but the arrival of a mysterious man threatens to bring them face to face once again with the seeds of their family’s destruction.
Welcome To Beach Town
Susan Wiggs
Compelled to return to Alara Cove, the place where an accusation she made years ago sent her into exile, competitive surfer Nikki Graziola finds old friendships, rivalries and an unexpected romance drawing her back into the life of the beach town she’s never quite forgotten.
A Week At The Shore
Barbara Delinsky
Returning to her family’s Rhode Island beach home after a 20-year estrangement, a real estate photographer navigates painful family secrets that test her bonds with her sisters, while her 13-year-old daughter pursues desperately wanted family ties.
Dance Away With Me
Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Seeking refuge in a Tennessee mountain town to recover from heartbreak, a young widow and midwife bonds with an enigmatic artist, a helpless infant, and a passel of curious teens in a small and suspicious community.
Lost And Found Sisters
Jill Shalvis
Feeling empty after the accidental death of her sister, a Los Angeles chef is shattered when a lawyer reveals a devastating family secret that prompts her to relocate to a different town, where she finds solace in simple pleasures and a kindhearted new friend.
All Our Summers
Holly Chamberlin
On the picturesque Maine coast, two aging sisters–one a flashy New York interior designer, the other a women who stayed in Maine to have a family–clash over the nineteenth-century family home.
Summer At The Cape
RaeAnne Thayne
When her sister Lily drowns while saving a child, Cami Porter returns to Cape Sanctuary where Lily’s business Coastal Pines Glamping is threatened by the man from whom she leased the land, and must keep Lily’s dream alive while dealing with grief and the complexities of relationships.