No summer of mine would be complete without an Elin Hilderbrand novel, and this year’s choice was Barefoot (2007). Hilderbrand women’s fiction, set in her trademark Nantucket, faithfully delivers a quintessential beach read, whether I make it to the beach or not.

“Three women step off of a plane. It sounded like the start of a joke.” With these opening lines, college student Josh Flynn meets the core characters of Barefoot. There’s Vicki–hauling a precocious preschooler in one arm, a nursing infant in the other–too young to be dealing with the reality of lung cancer. Then Brenda, beautiful, smart, and currently unemployed after an ill-considered affair with one of her university students ends her promising career as a literature prof. Finally there’s Melanie, who after seven heartbreaking in vitro attempts, is finally pregnant–a joy now rendered tragic in the face of her husband’s ongoing affair with a coworker. All three women have come to Nantucket to escape, to recoup, to strategize their future. And in each of their lives, Josh soon has a stake he could never have imagined.

What I love most about Hildebrand’s novels is her characters–complex, well-drawn, imminently relatable regardless of their walks of life. Better still, she gives these characters such interesting problems. No burden is too big for her characters to shoulder! But herein lies my complaint as well as my praise: too often these problems are downright smutty. For example (SPOILER ALERT), when Melanie–pregnant Melanie–develops a crush on Josh (10 years her junior), she caves to temptation and indulges in a steamy affair. On the beach no less. On the flip side, as a Christian reader I do have to give Hilderbrand credit for the way she shows Brenda drawn into questioning her childhood religion, authentically and, I felt, fairly. That’s not something we often see in mainstream novels like this.

If you can get past the smut factor–and many of you will not be able to, a choice I too make for a few of Hilderbrand’s novels–she is a top-drawer storyteller. She sews every plot thread into a seamless whole, the conclusion always satisfying without being pat. Then too, part of the joy of reading a Hilderbrand novel is her sense of place: Nantucket becomes a character in its own right.

4/5 stars–high marks for entertainment value, deduction for moral depravity.