It's summer on Nantucket, and as the season begins, three
women arrive at the local airport, observed by Josh, a local
boy, home from college. Burdened with small children,
unwieldy straw hats, and some obvious emotional issues,
the women--two sisters and one friend--make their way to
the sisters' tiny cottage, inherited from an aunt. They're all
trying to escape from something: Melanie, after seven failed
in-vitro attempts, discovered her husband's infidelity and
then her own pregnancy; Brenda embarked on a passionate
affair with an older student that got her fired from her
prestigious job as a professor in New York; and her sister
Vickie, mother to two small boys, has been diagnosed with
cancer. Soon Josh is part of the chaotic household, acting
as babysitter, confidant, and, eventually, something
more, while the women confront their pasts and map out
their futures.

Elin Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three young children. She grew up in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, and traveled extensively before settling on Nantucket, which has been the setting for her five previous novels. Hilderbrand is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.