‘The Five Star Weekend,’ published in 2023 is now a TV show starring Jennifer Garner available to stream on Peacock
Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Elin Hilderbrand said she drew inspiration for The Five-Star Weekend from a real-life story another author experienced on Nantucket
- “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. That’s a novel.’ She’s like, ‘It’s an Elin Hilderbrand novel,’” the author recalled
- After exhausting her stock of Nantucket stories, Hilderbrand is exploring new locales for future novels
Elin Hilderbrand is reminiscing on The Five-Star Weekend and looking beyond Nantucket for her next novel.
The queen of beach reads opened up about her inspiration for The Five-Star Weekend, the beloved novel set in Nantucket that recently made its small screen debut, on a July 15 episode of Jenna Bush Hager’s Open Book podcast. The celebrated book was one of her last to be set on the Massachusetts island, as she’s exploring new locales for future novels.
The idea for The Five-Star Weekend came to Hilderbrand in — you guessed it! — Nantucket, while she was sharing a drink with another author who was on the island. Hilderbrand learned the author was there meeting several new people under a heartbreaking premise: their shared friend was dying.
Credit: Little, Brown Paperbacks
“Her dear friend had terminal stage four cancer… and so that friend had assembled the most important friends from throughout her life to come together,” Hilderbrand recalled. “And none of them knew each other for this weekend on Nantucket.” But not everyone was getting along as well as the host would have hoped.
“And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. That’s a novel,’” Hilderbrand said. “She’s like, ‘It’s an Elin Hilderbrand novel.’”
The author, who Hilderbrand opted to keep anonymous for her privacy, gave her blessing for Hilderbrand to start writing, so long as she omitted key personal details. Hilderbrand got three pages in before realizing it may be too melancholy to write as true-to-life.
Still, the concept of bringing one’s friends from all moments of life was intriguing, beautiful and “complicated,” Hilderbrand said. So instead of killing off her protagonist, Hollis, Hilderbrand took out her husband, thus setting the stage for the novel.
Hilderbrand’s bestselling novel, initially published in 2023, follows a woman named Hollis as she gathers four other friends from different points in her life in the wake of her husband’s sudden death. But the weekend soon turns tumultuous, stirring up secrets, struggles and scandal.
Like most of Hilderbrand’s novels, known for their beach-read vibes, The Five-Star Weekend is set on Nantucket. Across her wide breadth of titles, the author has carved herself a niche when it comes to characterizing the island.
Credit: Adam Rose/PEACOCK
But now Hilderbrand is looking toward a change of scenery. The author told The New York Times earlier this year that she “ran out of ideas,” because her novels are essentially doing “the same thing every year [but] completely differently.” Swan Song, which came out in 2024, is her last Nantucket novel.
“[Nantucket’s] small, right? It’s 4 miles by 13 miles. I had done every festival, every time of year, every location, every possible drama that’s appropriate for a beach novel,” Hilderbrand told Hager. “And I didn’t want to repeat myself, and I didn’t want anyone to ever read a book and be like, ‘It just wasn’t as good as the last.’”
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The author recently explored outside the coastal island with boarding school drama The Academy, which she co-wrote with her daughter Shelby Cunningham.
Hilderbrand’s next book, The Novelists, will feature four women who met at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Since it’s not yet under contract, Hilderbrand says she’s got the freedom to pursue the project at her own pace.
The Five-Star Weekend novel is available now, wherever books are sold, and the series is available to stream on Peacock.
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