The Love Season leaves a chill in the air

This book had me from hello. Elin Hilderbrand's story stretches over the course of three decades but is slammed into a little more than 24 hours on Nantucket Island in the summer time.

This is the first work of Hilderbrand's that I've read and I admit, I didn't want to put it down. Her descriptions of Marguerite's work as a chef nearly conjures the meals she created before your very eyes and for your taste buds to enjoy. Her deft handiwork at engaging women - one in her very late teens and the other over 60 - is stellar. The average reader identifies with both - not feeling one is too young or too old, but that the story each has to tell is one that will touch the reader's heart.

Hilderbrand does an excellent job of constructing her main characters and building her plot, but don't get too comfortable with those peripheral characters who make BIG appearances only to fade out and be forgotten in the rush for the author to finish the day and thus the book.

Although the book is hard to put down, I found I wanted to throw it when it all ended. The conclusion was anti climatic, disappointing and weak from an author who demonstrated such literary prowess through the previous 290 pages. Nothing is solved, only an age-old story of love and forgiveness is revealed and the reader is left to wonder if that is even enough to right the wrongs made over the course of a day and several decades. I am not a reader who likes to be left to wonder and Hilderbrand left me to do just that as she shut off the final light in her main character's home. What a pity she couldn't have kept a night-light on somewhere, or even lit a candle to illuminate a more encompassing set of circumstances at the books close.

It must have been a gusty Nantucket wind that blew the candle's flame out and shut this interesting novel too early.