Okay book. Easy read. Divorced mother of three kids is killed by a hit and run driver while on her daily run on Nantucket Island. We follow the people affected and their lives before and after the event. We also follow the mother from her stopping place before she goes to her final resting place. Kirkus: rom the greenroom of the afterlife�make that Benjamin Moore "Parsley Snips" green¥a newly dead Nantucket novelist watches life unfold without her.In her 27th novel, Hilderbrand gives herself an alter ego¥beloved beach-novel author Vivian Howe¥sends her out for a morning jog, and immediately kills her off. A hit-and-run driver leaves Vivi dead by the side of the road, where her son's best friend discovers her body¥or was he responsible for the accident? Vivi doesn't know, nor does she know yet that her daughter Willa is pregnant, or that her daughter Carson is having a terribly ill-advised affair, or that her son, Leo, has a gnawing secret, or that her ex is getting tired of the girl he dumped her for. She will discover all this and more as she watches one last summer on Nantucket play out under the tutelage of Martha, her "Person," who receives her in the boho-chic waiting room of the Beyond. Herms-scarved Martha explains that Vivi will have three nudges¥three chances to change the course of events on Earth and prevent her bereaved loved ones from making life-altering mistakes. She will also get to watch the publication of what will be her last novel, titled Golden Girl, natch, and learn the answers to two questions: Will the secret about her own life she buried in this novel come to light (who cares, really¥she's dead now), and will it hit No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list (now there's an interesting question). She'll also get to see that one of her biggest wrongs is posthumously righted and that her kids have learned her most important lesson. As Willa says to Carson, "You know how she treats the characters in her books? She gives them flaws, she portrays them doing horrible things¥but the reader loves them anyway. Because Mom loves them. Because they?re human.?If novelists are auditioning to play God, Hilderbrand gets the part.

I thought this was going to be trigger fest and I'd have to bail but Elin's twist on heaven is just so good it didn't hurt quite so bad. Overall only 1 character drove me crazy which for such a huge cast was pretty great (Carson). Very sweet but with enough soapyness to keep it interesting. ( )

So grateful for an ARC of this book. It broke me out of my reading slump. It was nice to visit Nantucket again through one of her lovely books. ( )

4.5 stars. I liked this way more than I thought I would! I actually got really wrapped up in everyone's stories and found it hard to put down. I did think the POV sections with the island of Nantucket as a narrator (essentially the collective humanity of Nantucket) was a little odd but there weren't many sections of that. I will definitely read more of this author's books! ( )

Hilderbrand’s latest has her usual cast of Nantucket characters with a mystery trying to holding it together. The heaven sequences are a distraction. Hilderbrand has set the bar high for reader expectation so anything that falls below can be seen as a disappointment. For new readers to her cult, this will be an engaging read. ( )