The Quinn family celebrates their most dramatic Christmas yet in this enchanting sequel to Elin Hilderbrand’s bestselling Winter Street.
Christmas on Nantucket finds Winter Street Inn owner Kelley Quinn and his family busily preparing for the holiday season. Though the year has brought tragedy, the Quinns have much to celebrate: Kelley has reunited with his first wife Margaret, Kevin and … his first wife Margaret, Kevin and Isabelle have a new baby; and Ava is finally dating a nice guy.
But when Kelley’s estranged wife Mitzi shows up on the island, along with Kevin’s devious ex-wife Norah and a dangerously irresistible old fling of Ava’s, the Inn is suddenly overrun with romantic feuds, not to mention guests. With jealousy, passion, and eggnog consumption at an all-time high, it’s going to take a whole lot more than a Christmas miracle to get the Quinns–and the Inn–through the holidays intact.
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Perfect Christmas read to put you in the spirit of the season.
The whole Winter Street series is wonderful. You will fall in love with the characters and hate for the last book to end.
The second book in the Winter Street series was another re-read for me. I forgot how fast this one felt when reading. In this second book, the Quinn family joins each other at the Winter Street Inn for the Winter Stroll event. This book had quite a few twists and turns as the family drama continued. I found myself still sympathizing and cheering for the family members whom I had in the first book.
Are you looking for drama and emotion? Then look no further than the Winter series! Winter Stroll by Elin Hilderbrand was just as dramatic (if not more) than the first book was, and I really liked a lot of the themes touched on in this book. I love the various characters (even if I don’t actually love some of them), and I have begun to feel very attached to the Quinn family. There are a couple other viewpoints in this book that we didn’t get in Winter Street which I really liked, and you can tell Hilderbrand is a pro at writing the family drama.
I listened to the audio again, and once again Erin Bennett killed it with her narration. She really is the perfect narrator for this series, and I could listen to her all day long. I listened to this book in just a few hours on the same day, and it went by really quickly. The author’s note at the end made my heart hurt, and I am so glad the audio included it. I love getting a peek into the author’s life, and the note on this book was amazing and moving. I don’t want to talk about Winter Stroll too much because I don’t want to give away spoilers, but it was a great follow up and I look forward to the other books in the series!
I listened to the audio version of this book. This is the second book in the series and it definitely follows exactly where the last one left off. Same storyline, just continued. I was very invested in the story and enjoyed it. There was the issue of the “he said” and “she said” in the narration. Something else should have been done with all of those. I am going to continue on to the third book.
I read the series of four and enjoyed each one. A fun series for winter.
A quick, enjoyable Christmas read. I loved it.I enjoy reading Christmas themed books all year around and this series is one of the best. The Quinn family is a blended one that comes with its own unique problems and celebrations. The family vibe is what draws me to the series and the personal relationships between the characters. I love to see growth in maturity and character development in the cast. This book gave me the warm fuzzies.
Beautiful story!
Love this whole series.
WINTER STROLL, the second book in Elin Hilderbrand’s Winter Street trilogy, picks up right where WINTER STREET left off with its dysfunction, humor, drama, jealousy, romance and compassion.
Kelley Quinn, an innkeeper and the owner of the Winter Street Inn, and his family have been through their fair share of trials and tribulations over the last year. It’s Christmas on Nantucket, and the town is celebrating Christmas Stroll weekend. Kelley and his ex-wife, Margaret, are looking forward to celebrating the traditional holiday weekend as well as the baptism of their new granddaughter, Genevieve, who’s born to their son Kevin and French housekeeper Isabelle. As preparations are underway for this wonderful family weekend, Mitzi, Kelley’s estranged wife of one year, shows up at the Inn uninvited.
Kelley and Mitzi were married for 12 years, but have been separated for the past year due to Mitzi having an affair with George, who was the Inn’s Santa Claus for the last 12 Christmas seasons. Kelley has been chugging along and has the Inn to keep him busy, but Mitzi is miserable. They’ve been waiting anxiously to hear any news about their son, Bart, who is a Marine stationed in Afghanistan. He has been MIA after 44 soldiers were kidnapped by the Bely, an extremist group. Bart has been missing for nearly a year now, and Mitzi is unable to deal with day-to-day life wondering about her son. Fearing the worst, she turns to drinking for refuge. Her relationship with George is also on the rocks. Therefore, she decides to return to the Inn and seek solace with Kelley, the only person who shares her grief. Although Mitzi was sort of a villain in WINTER STREET, Hilderbrand describes her feelings superbly, allowing the reader to fully sympathize with her during her time of despair.
Margaret and Kelley have been on friendly terms during the past year, and she manages to visit him and her family on the weekends when she’s not anchoring the WCBS News. She also has helped Kelley financially with the Inn and, using her celebrity, brings in many new guests. Margaret’s relationship with Drake, a pediatric surgeon, hasn’t been serious so far, but suddenly he realizes he’s in love with her and wants to marry her.
There’s also a lot of drama going on with Kelley and Margaret’s older children — Ava, Kevin and Patrick — and daughter-in-law Jennifer. Ava and Kevin have romantic problems with their significant others, and Jennifer’s husband, Patrick, has been in jail for the past year for insider trading. Jennifer, meanwhile, is barely managing to raise her three young boys, who miss their father and take their anger out on her. As she struggles to cope, she turns to drugs and booze. Although there’s a lot going on, Hilderbrand does an amazing job of keeping each story line separate. I never once had to turn back the pages to figure out who she was talking about.
Hilderbrand never disappoints me. I can identify with each of her detailed characters and their story lines, as her writing style is comfortable and inviting. There’s a sense of humor in both WINTER STREET and WINTER STROLL, but there isn’t as much in the latter as there is in the former. How will the Quinn’s manage to get through all of the jealousy and heartache? We’ll just have to wait until the final book of the trilogy to find out how their drama is solved. If you’re like me, you’ll certainly hope there are happy endings. Stay tuned!
I enjoyed the whole series!
Always enjoy this author. She writes about what she knows with her islands novels and she never disappoints. Always entertaining. Fun reads.
Completed in about 30 hours. It’s been a long time since I could say that about any book over 100 pages. So, why just the three stars?
What I liked about “Winter Stroll”:
Easy to read – It really was effortless. The story does not lag. There isn’t a moment it wastes on being dull. There isn’t much to contemplate. Just read the words and turn the pages. Even the abundance of characters and the switching between whose perspective is being given isn’t a struggle.
Entertaining – The ultimate chick lit. Everyone’s life is drama and chaos. There’s love triangles and jealousy, petty spats and misunderstandings and horrible timing. So many times, I caught myself thinking I am glad my life is not this soap opera-ish but it is so fun to read it. Even with some particularly heavy topics woven in, the story doesn’t weigh down as a result (which should be familiar to you, if you have read the first book in the series, much the same in tone). Think of the mayhem in a good romantic comedy. That’s the sort of entertainment this book brings.
The characters (most of them, anyway) – Despite there being so many characters, most of them are likable if flawed. I think that makes them feel more real. Even the seemingly perfect ones show a human side, something relate-able. At one point or another, I wanted to smack each of them for some reason (except for, possibly, Drake), but isn’t that just the way it is with the people you know? Stupid decisions are made, smacks must be administered (even if only in the mind).
What I didn’t care for:
The timeline is occasionally a little jumpy – Because the events of the weekend unfold through the eyes of varying characters in the book, there are points when the story has some overlap. First you get the view from one character, then in the next section, it backtracks a bit and you get the same events from another perspective. While this is fine the vast majority of the time, every so often, there’s a bit more “rewind” and I’d become a little confused. It’s not major, but it’s enough that it caught my attention.
Overused ‘says’ – One thing that truly drove me batty is the constant “she says,” “George says,” “Scott says,” “Margaret says.” Even though quotation marks are enough to indicate that someone is speaking and that it is clear who the participants are in the conversation, all this ‘says says says’ continued. If the author still felt it was necessary, I would have at least appreciated the use of a synonym or something. Answered, replied, retorted. The rare times ‘asked’ popped up, I nearly cheered from sheer relief.
A few of the characters – Honestly, outside of the peripheral troublemakers (Norah, Roxanne), the one character that truly grates on me is Mitzi. I can’t seem to muster up any positive feelings for her. There are a handful of others that I also don’t care for all that much, but Mitzi is the worst of it for me.
This is absolutely fluff reading. It’s frivolous and silly, at times outright ridiculous, but taking it for what it is, overall, it’s a success. Don’t come into “Winter Stroll” looking for fine literature and you shouldn’t be disappointed. One other thing: it ends, as the first one did, with cliffhangers and dangling ends. If that sort of thing bothers you, get all four books and just keep reading straight through, I guess. Actually, I’m guessing that’s just par for the course with the final two books in the series, though I haven’t read them yet to say for sure. I will be though!
Another crazy story from the Quinn family. A whole year has passed since the last book and a lot has happened.
The inn is finally thriving and booked all the time.
The family all have their own problems and personal demons they are battling.
With all the Christmas spirit and fun of the annual winter stroll and the baptism of the new baby how can anything go wrong?
I love the Quinn family and all their crazy!! It did kind of just end though with not ending. Other than that it was a really great story I can’t wait for the next one!