Barefoot

When Vicki and her children join her sister, Brenda, and Vicki's best friend, Melanie, on a vacation in Nantucket, each woman brings a disturbing secret. Narrator Katie Hale's gentle voice lends itself well to expressing the trauma of Vicki's recent lung cancer diagnosis and chemotherapy treatments. And Hale is especially believable in characterizing Brenda, who is struggling to come to terms with her recent loss of tenure because of an affair with a student. Melanie is also on an emotional roller coaster, which Hale portrays energetically. She's had a successful in-vitro procedure and is delighted--only to learn that her husband is having an affair. Secondary characters Josh, a student hired to mind Vicky's children, and his girlfriend, Didi, a cunning manipulator, are also given true-to-life performances. G.D.W. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

April 2, 2007
Hilderbrand's sixth novel heaps on the trauma as a substitute for realistic connection in this heady mix of beach house, cancer, affair and mom lit. Connecticut housewife Vicki, diagnosed with lung cancer, has packed up her two kids for a chemo-commuting summer at the family's Nantucket cabin; sister Brenda, a newly minted high-powered assistant professor, has just been fired for having an affair with one of her students; Vicki's best friend, Melanie, newly pregnant, has discovered her husband is cheating. The three hit the tarmac of the tiny island airport, where they run into home-for-the-summer Middlebury senior Josh Flynn, who has a summer job there that he hates. Hardened cliché Brenda pines for her stereotypically weathered Australian lover. Melanie is a chronic complainer until she romances grim aspiring writer Josh, whom she has run into again and brought on as the house babysitter. (Josh thinks his old girlfriend should "locate her center" and "operate from a place of security.") Of the three women, only the suffering, stubborn Vicki, who keeps a list of "Things That No Longer Mattered" and cries when she can't seduce her visiting husband, draws readerly sympathy. There are some tender moments in Hilderbrand's latest beacher, but others are as irritating as sand in your swimsuit.