Look, I need to start with a confession. I've been avoiding Elin Hilderbrand for years because I thought her books would be too... I don't know, beach-read-light for me? Like, pretty covers, pretty island, pretty problems. I was being such a snob. My abuela would've smacked me upside the head for that attitude. She loved her telenovelas precisely because they understood that drama is drama, whether it's happening in a mansion in Mexico City or a cottage in Nantucket.
So here I am, eating my words along with my feelings.
The Gut-Punch I Wasn't Ready For
This book opens with three best friends doing their annual ritual—champagne, skinny dipping, secrets under the stars—and then one of them just... doesn't come back from the water. I was designing a logo for a craft brewery when that happened, and I literally had to put my stylus down. Frida jumped on my lap like she knew something was wrong. (She always knows.)
What got me wasn't just the death itself—it's how Hilderbrand peels back the layers of this friendship afterward. Twenty years of history, twenty years of things left unsaid, and suddenly the two surviving friends are looking at each other like strangers. The secrets that come out? Ugh. They're not shocking in a soap opera twist way, they're shocking in a "oh god, I've done something like that" way. The kind of betrayals that happen in real friendships. The lies we tell to protect ourselves. The ones we tell to protect people we love. Tattooist of Auschwitz gutted me in a similar way—secrets kept for survival, love tangled up with impossible choices.
I ugly-cried at the chapter where Kayla finally confronts what she's been hiding. Not delicate tears—full-on, mascara-destroying sobs. Diego actually left the room. Even my judgmental cat couldn't handle it.
Christina Delaine Is the Friend You Need
Here's the thing about audiobooks with multiple female characters—it can go so wrong so fast. Voices that sound like caricatures, or worse, voices that all blend together until you can't tell who's speaking. Christina Delaine doesn't do that. She gives each woman her own texture. Kayla sounds grounded, practical, like she's holding everything together with both hands. Val has this edge to her voice, something a little brittle underneath the polish. And Antoinette—the one who disappears—she's warm and chaotic and you can hear why these women loved her.
Delaine's pacing is perfect for this kind of story. She doesn't rush the emotional beats. When a character is sitting with grief, you feel that silence. When the tension ratchets up, her voice gets this urgency that made me miss my turn twice on my coffee run. (Worth it.)
I listened at my usual 1.0x because honestly, why would you speed through something this emotionally rich? You'd miss the way Delaine delivers certain lines—the ones where you can hear a character's heart breaking even when they're saying something mundane.
Salt Air and Festering Secrets
The vibes are immaculate in that specific way where you feel cozy and devastated at the same time. Nantucket in summer, salt air, old friendships, champagne on the beach—but underneath all that beauty, there's rot. Secrets that have been festering for decades. Marriages built on half-truths. The things we convince ourselves are okay because we've been doing them for so long.
Abuela would have loved this one. She would've been clutching her rosary and gasping at every revelation, then immediately calling my tía to discuss. "Mija, these women!" I can hear her saying it.
Who This Is (and Isn't) For
If you need your characters to be likeable, this might frustrate you. These women make messy choices. They hurt each other. They're selfish in ways that feel uncomfortably human. But that's exactly why it worked for me. I don't want perfect people. I want people who feel real, and real people are complicated and sometimes terrible. That's exactly what I loved about Identicals too—messy women making choices that made me cringe and nod at the same time. Skip this if you want light and breezy. But if you understand that female friendship is one of the most powerful and complicated forces on earth? If you want to feel things? This one's yours.
Mija, Get in the Water
Would I listen again? Maybe not immediately—I need to recover emotionally first—but yes. There are layers here I know I missed because I was too busy crying the first time through. And honestly, Christina Delaine's narration is the kind you want to revisit. Like rewatching a favorite movie with a friend who's never seen it, just so you can experience their reactions.
Just... maybe keep some tissues nearby.
