Kelley and Mitzi Quin are the owners of Winter Street Inn in Nantucket. Kelly has three adult children from his first wife, news anchor Margaret Quin; and together he and Mitzi have one son, Bart who recently joined the Marines.
As the holiday season approaches and Kelley anticipates having the Inn filled with his children and grandchildren, Kelley walks in on Mitzi kissing Santa Claus. Literally kissing the man they hired each year to be the Santa for the Inn…
let the dysfunction begin.
Each of the three Kelley’s children coming to the Inn come with their own troubles.
Patrick is a hedge fund manager that may have made some deals that are not all on the up and up.
Kevin has secretly been seeing the French housekeeper of the Inn, Isabelle.
Ava is in a relationship which makes her heart pound, but has the inkling that he is not as committed as she is.
All of this as well as the news of Mitzi is going to make for a very interesting Christmas at the Winter Street Inn.
I read very few Christmas related stories mainly because they tend to be a little too sweet and a little too neat for my liking. I decided to give Winter Street a try because I have enjoyed this author in the past, and by reading the synopsis I felt this book might just have some meat to it.
And Winter Street does have meat. Dysfunction surrounds this family as they gather for the Christmas weekend. Relationship statuses change like the wind and do not blink because a break up one second is a new (or renewed) relationship the next.
While I did enjoy the story line, I found the books pacing to be too fast. As things fell apart on one page they were fixed by some thing else on another. On one hand someone may be heartbroken over a messy breakup and the next minute they are welcomed to dinner. I had to wonder how deep love went within this family as relationships truly were interchangeable.
The book also leaves you right on a horrible cliffhanger. You know there has to be more to this story and I imagine that there has to be a sequel as things are no where near being wrapped up.
Personally I am not sure if I will pick up the next book. Some of the characters are not very likable and one in particular I wanted to slap. I know life is messy but the Quins have more stock in messiness than most.
Delightfully narrated by Erin Bennett.
- Listening Length: 6 hours and 51 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: October 14, 2014
Book Journey 
I read few holiday stories as they tend to to sentimental for me. I will read them at other times of the year.
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I have a few on hand here and will try to get through them 😀
I agree about the overdose of sentimentality but we do like Christmassy stories to have a happily ever after.
LOL – well, this one did not have that 😀
I am in complete agreement with you on this audio.
I will have to look for your review Nise! 🙂
I just finished it and wrote my blog review today. I felt the same way, too rushed, some annoying characters. The parents just falling into bed with each other was so unbelievable.
Right? That and Ava’s constant pouting around, being jealous of others… that became old fast as well 🙂
The cliffhanger would definitely put me off. I don’t like them unless they’re part of a series of novellas.
It is such a cliffhanger that it would be cruel to not continue the story! 🙂
Author tweeted several weeks ago that this is the first in a trilogy. I may listen to this one!
I am glad to hear that Mary! I would be very interested in knowing what you think of this one 😉
Thanks for your review Sheila. This sounded like it could have been good. I think usually books are not fast paced enough. I’m not crazy for series unless all books are readily available.
I agree that I like my books to flow along but in this case it was the pace of the relationships what caused me to go “wha???” It could have been a greta read, it had wonderful potential. I would like to rewrote it…lol
Great and balanced review! I don’t typically read holiday books around Christmas, but do love Elin’s work. I’ve noticed some sequel books do leave major cliffhangers and it’s impossible to read one independently of the other.
Does everything have to be a trilogy now? 😉 I think this sounds a bit like a Penny Vincenzi novel, which I usually like, but can they can be a bit much in large doses.
I just finished listening to the 1st disc. I wrote down too many characters. I am disappointed in this book, I have liked her others better. Nantucket is an island of rich people any more. My ancestors lived there. Everyone has troubles but Christmas in Nantucket has to be better than that!!!