Winter Street by Elin Hilderbrand, read by Erin Bennett
This novel begins with Kelley Quinn, owner of the Winter Street Inn in Nantucket walking in on his wife Mitzi kissing Santa Claus. In this case, Santa Claus is the man they've hired for many years to play the role during the inn's Christmas festivities.
The holiday season has already been difficult with Kelley and Mitzi's 19-year-old son Bart with the Marines in the Middle East. It is only a couple of days until Christmas, and no one has heard from Bart in days.
Kelley isn't the only one with issues this Christmas. Two of Kelley's children from his first wife, Margaret, also live at the inn. Ava is a local teacher, and her boyfriend, a cabinetmaker, has gone home to visit his parents in Florida at the last minute. Ava knows his ex-girlfriend is recently divorced, and she doesn't feel secure in their relationship, so doesn't know how to interpret this behaviour. Kevin is a local bartender, with a life that doesn't seem to be going anywhere, and with a secret girlfriend, who springs a very big surprise on him. Kevin's had bad luck with love in the past, and isn't sure he can commit, even though he really cares about Isabelle.
The oldest child, Patrick, has just realized that a big error of judgement on his part is about to catch up with him, and his wife has taken the children to her parents' place rather than deal with what he has done. Patrick has always been the successful, responsible one in the family and this is a big turnabout for him. One he doesn't begin to know how to deal with.
As each of them reaches out to Margaret for reassurance, assistance, or advice, Margaret realizes that her Christmas plans must change as well.
This is the first in a series and introduces a number of interesting characters that will be interesting to follow.
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