Golden Girl

Often shelved with a misattributed earlier author, this Golden Girl entry refers to the contemporary beach novel of the same name by Elin Hilderbrand, set, like much of her work, on Nantucket. Vivian Howe is a fifty one year old novelist who has just turned in her thirteenth book and is on her morning run along Kingsley Road when she is struck and killed by a hit and run driver. From a celestial waystation called the Beyond, Vivi is allowed to keep watching the lives of her three children and ex husband during the summer of her death, and she is given three nudges that she can use to alter their decisions on Earth. Hilderbrand interweaves the family's grief with summer rituals at Nantucket bookstores, beach clubs, and oyster bars, and gradually uncovers the secret that the driver who killed Vivi is hiding in plain sight. The novel sits squarely in her sun warmed, gently melancholy beach read register, with a metaphysical premise that invites real reflection on legacy and forgiveness.