Under her roof in All’s Fair (metaphorically perhaps, “in love and war”) are her daughter, Kate, who has soaked her worry about shipping her only son off to Vietnam in booze from morning to night. The matriarch, Exalta, is a formidable grandmother and much of the action is set in her house on Main Street, Nantucket, and with all the class implications thereof. In “Summer of ’69,” Hilderbrand takes the national scene and makes it personal by deftly interweaving all the hot topics of the era through each of the main characters of the story’s family. There’s no reason to be afraid of it because it’s a historical novel.”

She emphasizes, for those wary of historical fiction, that she didn’t set out to create a documentary but rather “a classic Elin Hilderbrand novel - there are scenes at the beach, and there is a lot of food and wine, and great Nantucket and Vineyard atmosphere, so that you feel that you’re there. “So, it became a part of who I was,” Hilderbrand says. Every time a significant birthday rolls around, the anniversaries of all the events are in the news as well. Her twin brother Eric and she were born July 17, just one day after the Apollo 11 mission launched, and the next weekend was the Chappaquiddick incident. Her story has, as she says, a very specific genesis. 17 to 20, with book-related events and opportunities to spend time with the author. Lucky for her readers from far and near, the Winnetu Oceanside Resort offers a “Summer of ‘69” extravaganza from Oct. And while summer is certainly over and we’re well into fall … a good “beach read,” especially one by Hilderbrand, is never out of season. Of the hot and heady days of the late Sixties, perhaps none was so memorable as the “Summer of ’69,” the title of Elin Hilderbrand’s newest novel - this one set here and in Nantucket.

Elin hilderbrand summer of 69 series