I like to give myself challenges because I like the feeling of completing something.  I have decided to read all of the books that were nominated for a GoodReads Choice Award in 2022.  I started with the fiction category as that is the first category listed and picked The Hotel Nantucket as my first book in this challenge because it was the only one available as an audiobook that was checked in at my library.

“After a tragic fire in 1922 that killed 19-year-old chambermaid, Grace Hadley, The Hotel Nantucket descended from a gilded age gen, to a mediocre budget-friendly lodge to inevitably an abandoned eyesore -until it’s purchased and renovated top to bottom by London billionaire, Xavier Darling.  Xavier hires Nantucket sweetheart Lizbet Keaton as his general manager, and Lizbet, in turn, pulls together a charismatic, if inexperienced, staff who share the vision of turning the fate of the hotel around.  They face challenges in getting along with one another (and with the guests), in overcoming the hotel’s bad reputation, and in surviving the (mostly) harmless shenanigans of Grace herself — who won’t stop haunting the hotel until her murder is acknowledged.

One of the major things that stood out to me about this book was that we focused on a whole cast of characters.  There are a few characters that we focus more on, but this story is driven by the ensemble we are following.  All of these characters connect back to the hotel in some way, which I found very entertaining.  But, I also think there were too many storylines that I personally got lost with some of the smaller characters and their plotlines.  It reminded me a lot of the movie “Knives Out” with all of the moving parts between the staff and guests of the Hotel Nantucket.  I just think it was not for me at the moment of reading it with how lost I got at times.

This was also my first Elin Hilderbrand book that I have read.  I have seen a lot of her novels available as Book of the Month choices so I have always been intrigued to pick one up.  I think that Hilderbrand has a nice and simple style of writing that can bring any type of reader into her universe.  I have never been to Nantucket, but I felt like I was there thanks to this book.  It was the writing style that kept me reading and I can greatly appreciate that especially since I personally got confused with the cast of characters but that was all my fault.

I do not think I gave this book a fair chance when I was reading it.  While it was a fun story with an interesting batch of characters, I felt lost trying to keep up with everything that was happening.  I want to give this book another chance in the future but this is where I  stand with it at the moment.