From New York Times bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand, comes a novel about the many ways family can fill our lives with love…if they don’t kill us first. *New York Times bestseller* It’s Nantucket wedding season, also known as summer-the sight of a bride racing down Main Street is as common as the sun setting at Madaket Beach. The Otis-Winbury wedding promises to be an event to remember: … Otis-Winbury wedding promises to be an event to remember: the groom’s wealthy parents have spared no expense to host a lavish ceremony at their oceanfront estate.
But it’s going to be memorable for all the wrong reasons after tragedy strikes: a body is discovered in Nantucket Harbor just hours before the ceremony-and everyone in the wedding party is suddenly a suspect. As Chief of Police Ed Kapenash interviews the bride, the groom, the groom’s famous mystery-novelist mother, and even a member of his own family, he discovers that every wedding is a minefield-and no couple is perfect. Featuring beloved characters from The Castaways, Beautiful Day, and A Summer Affair, The Perfect Couple proves once again that Elin Hilderbrand is the queen of the summer beach read.
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good read! moves well
Elin Hilderbrand writes wonderful books with believable characters and interesting plots and twist. ALWAYS a good read!
Elin Hilderbrand’s THE PERFECT COUPLE is a fantastic and clever whodunit that keeps readers in suspense throughout the entire book.
Celeste Otis and Benji Winbury’s beautiful and lavish wedding is about to take place at Benji’s parents’ oceanfront estate on Nantucket, which is known as Summerland. His parents — Tag, the owner of a hedge fund, and Greer, a famous mystery novelist — spare no expense for the extravagant and posh wedding. Greer is also 100% in charge of it. However, due to very unfortunate circumstances, a terrible mishap and tragedy occur, and the wedding is canceled hours before the ceremony. The body of the maid of honor, Merritt Monaco, is discovered in Nantucket Harbor, and everyone in the wedding party is a suspect. It’s up to Chief of Police Ed Kapenash and Detective Nicholas Diamantopoulos, known as “Nick the Greek,” to interview everyone and solve the mystery.
Hilderbrand is at her best alternating between characters and timelines and their backgrounds as the Chief and Nick the Greek figure out piece by piece the identity of the culprit. What everyone on Nantucket deems to be the perfect marriage simply isn’t. Celeste comes from a humble background, having grown up in Pennsylvania. She now lives in Manhattan and is the assistant director at the Bronx Zoo. Her parents, Bruce and Karen, are hard-working middle-class individuals; sadly, Karen has stage 4 breast cancer. Their relationship plays an important role in the story, starting from the moment they met as teenagers until the present.
Benji, meanwhile, has lived a privileged life growing up in London and currently works for Nomura Securities, a Japanese bank with headquarters in New York. Shooter Uxley is Benji’s best man and childhood friend who has envied Benji ever since they were kids. Despite Benji’s upbringing, his family has its own dysfunctions. Greer has long suspected that Tag has been unfaithful with his childhood friend, Featherleigh. She has “never found hard evidence of any indiscretions, but she has certainly had her suspicions.” Even though Tag’s fidelity is in question, Greer has the upper hand in the marriage as “the majority of her wealth comes from her family who owned the mills that produced over half the gin in Great Britain,” and Tag feels inferior to her. Maid of honor Merritt is quite taken with Tag, adding a new layer of indiscretion to the already compelling plot.
As the Chief and Nick the Greek interview each suspect, we learn that there is no perfect couple. Every marriage in this story has some type of dysfunction. As my grandmother always said, “True love never runs smooth,” and that is especially true in THE PERFECT COUPLE.
Hilderbrand’s imagination and ability to craft so many characters and storylines keep the novel riveting. There is abundant detail with plenty of twists and turns as the plot gets thicker and thicker and you hunger for more. I kept wondering who the murderer could possibly be, but my suspicions kept changing! At the same time, I enjoyed unraveling the mysteries of each marriage — every character is given equal weight, adding more flavor to the story, which kept me glued to the book. This is Hilderbrand’s first murder mystery, and she clearly has a knack for suspenseful writing and knows how to capture her readers to lure them in.
It also wouldn’t be an Elin Hilderbrand novel without getting the flavor of what it’s like living on Nantucket. You’ll take a ferry ride in your mind and feel the breeze on your face. You’ll visit the beaches and long to be on one, and you’ll visit her favorite hot spots and restaurants, like the Chicken Box. Her food descriptions make readers hungry, and your palate is ready to taste what she’s describing. The Winbury estate, Summerland, was especially fascinating as she made it sound like they lived in a palace.
Hilderbrand’s books keep getting better and better as they’re well thought out and meticulously written. They are definite page-turners with substance, and her descriptions are so expressive. Get your cup of coffee, glass of wine or beach chair and hunker down as her novels reel you in. Hilderbrand reigns the summer season, and I look forward to each and every one of her books.
I really should stop reading chick lit. I just don’t enjoy it enough, but this being marketed as a mystery caught my interest, so I gave it a shot. I have also heard Elin is great at beach reads and I’m all about an occasional good beach read, so I was fine with just being entertained. But this fell far short of good entertainment for me. If you enjoy chick lit, you’ll probably enjoy this a whole lot more than me. But if you want an actual good mystery, meh, maybe find a different book.
I have never read anything by Elin before and I doubt I’ll be reading anything else by her in the future. I really struggled with the third person present tense throughout the novel and felt very disconnected from the characters because of it. I also felt she included too many frivolous details and descriptions that aided the story none and just bored me.
I will say, the storyline itself was interesting enough that I wanted to know what happened, hence why I finished it. But the ending, or lack thereof, was ridiculous. The way the police handled the interrogations was good, but their “conclusion” to the case was equally as ridiculous. Don’t write anything with a mystery plot line if you’re going to just up and end the investigation because of “time constraints” as she mentions in her acknowledgments.
Loved.
I read an Elin Hilderbrand book every summer, and this one is different than any of her other books. It incorporates characters from earlier stories, as her books often do, but this is a bit of a murder mystery, which I don’t think she’s done before! I don’t read blurbs, generally, especially for authors I know and trust, so I had no idea what I was in for. As soon as I read the prologue, I thought, “Oooooo, this is going to be good!”
It was excellent. It did remind me a bit of the first book I’d ever read by Anne Rivers Siddons, called Colony. Makes me want to go back and read that book again, actually.
I think it’s her best yet. A little mystery too.
Love this author and her books always entertaining
Great read!
Easy read , keeps you interested and I loved the local location as I am from Massachussettes and have been to Nantucket many times. Story line is realistic and just a lovely story about love.
Kept my attention. Loved the mystery and the way the author kept you guessing by going back and forth in time. Great read!
I don’t think I would have read The Perfect Couple if not for all the people saying how amazing it was! It was definitely a peer pressure kind of thing…which I fully admit still works on me at 39 years old. I’m so glad I gave in. The story centers on Celeste & Benji or…The Perfect Couple…their families, side chicks (and sideguys), a wedding, and a murder (or is it?!) all happening amount the upper crust of Nantucket & NYC. I instantly loved the characters and felt they were fully realized. You love them and you love to hate them. The novel is told from various characters experiences. Hilderbrand’s settings are so well described that many times when thinking about the story….I kept thinking it was a show I was watching on TV instead of something I was reading. Not many authors have the ability to do that. All of this and it’s a mystery on top of it! As soon as you think you’ve got it all figured out….you don’t. Kept me guessing all the time. Hilderbrand’s new book Winter in Paradise is already on its way to my home….and I look forward to diving in!
I highly recommend this book.
I did not like the layout of this book. It is not a straight read, mixed, hard to follow. My least favorite book by Erin Hilderbrand.
Not one of her best but easy enough to get through and pure entertainment.
I read this book very quickly. It was a mystery and the characters were well portrayed. It kept you guessing.
Enjoyed this book. Had a lot of characters, but still a good read!
Excellent fast reading women’s literature. Characters are life like with flaws showing.
I really enjoyed this book and had to find out what happened. This is one of my favorite authors!
Might be my favorite by this author
A good entertaining story. Set in Nantucket, the family and friends of a wedding party have all kinds of secrets. The author reveals the story at just the right pace.