The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand

 

Summary (from the publisher): It's Nantucket wedding season, also known as summer-the sight of a bride racing down Main Street is as common as the sun setting at Madaket Beach. The Otis-Winbury wedding promises to be an event to remember: the groom's wealthy parents have spared no expense to host a lavish ceremony at their oceanfront estate.

But it's going to be memorable for all the wrong reasons after tragedy strikes: a body is discovered in Nantucket Harbor just hours before the ceremony-and everyone in the wedding party is suddenly a suspect. As Chief of Police Ed Kapenash interviews the bride, the groom, the groom's famous mystery-novelist mother, and even a member of his own family, he discovers that every wedding is a minefield-and no couple is perfect. Featuring beloved characters from The Castaways, Beautiful Day, and A Summer Affair, The Perfect Couple proves once again that Elin Hilderbrand is the queen of the summer beach read.

Review: Celeste Otis is marrying Benji Winbury at his family's lavish Nantucket estate and it promises to be the wedding of the season. But the celebration quickly turns into a tragedy when a body is found in the water just hours before the wedding is set to occur. Now everyone is suspect. With a fascinating cast of characters from the influencer maid of honor, the wealthy and famous mystery-novelist mother, the bride who works in a zoo, and a whole lot of privileged and wealthy friends and relatives. 

This was my first Elin Hilderbrand read and it sucked me right in. Hilderbrand not only had an enticing, whodunnit plotline, but the characters were intriguing.  This book does have a large cast of characters, which can be difficult to manage in audio format. It also jumps around in time a lot but was fairly easy to follow despite all of this. I really like Celeste, who gets sucked in to by Benji's tender love for her and the temptation of a lifetime of wealth and ease after a childhood with little. I also really liked Celeste's parents and how much they love each other, even if not always perfectly. It was hard to believe that Celeste wouldn't be more confident in her love life and relationships after such great role models of a loving marriage and also just such supportive parents overall. 

This cover art is so misleading! At first glance, this looks like it is going to be a happy, lighthearted read but it couldn't be further from it. I did think it was a little unbelievable that 1) Benji would be so drawn to the unsophisticated and simple Celeste (or that he would be so upstanding and wholesome given his sort of sleazy father and manipulative mother), 2) that Merritt and Celester would be friends at all given how vastly different they are in nearly every way, 3) that Celester has literally no other friends, and 4) that Benji's family would be so accepting of Celeste and roll out the red carpet for her. 

Without giving anything away, I was satisfied with the ending. With is something I rarely to almost never say with crime novels. Hilderbrand liberally spreads red herrings all along the investigation to make her readers think numerous different people are responsible for the death, but it did add to the tension and mystery. 

Stars: 4