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Nantucket Sisters    by Nancy Thayer Amazon.com order for
Nantucket Sisters
by Nancy Thayer
Order:  USA  Can
Ballantine, 2014 (2014)
Hardcover, CD, e-Book
* * *   Reviewed by Hilary Williamson

Ready for a light yet satisfying beach read? Here's the perfect choice, Nancy Thayer's Nantucket Sisters which even has a resort setting.

Emily Porter's wealthy family owns a vacation home on Nantucket and she loves to go there because she has befriended a local girl, Maggie McIntyre. Maggie's mother, a seamstress, is divorced and Emily's mother is not impressed by the friendship. So, despite the fact that Emily is always welcome in Maggie's home, the converse is not true. And Maggie has another close friend, gawky,buck-toothed (yet cool in other ways) Tyler.

The girls grow up as best friends, and Emily falls in love with Maggie's older brother Ben. But, though her feelings are reciprocated and they become very close, they eventually break up. Emily is unwilling to give up the lifestyle to which she is accustomed, while Ben is too proud to accept financial help from her parents. There are changes in Maggie's immediate family too.

Away at college, Emily gets involved with Cameron Chadwick, who has a similar background to hers, and whom she met at a friend's wedding. She doesn't love him as she does Ben, but finds it a comfortable relationship. Back on Nantucket, Maggie ends up pregnant from a one night stand with Cameron. And Emily also finds herself expecting - but is it Ben's baby or Cameron's?

These relationships are as muddled as those in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. But all's well that ends well in this charming and heartfelt novel, in which history repeats itself with two little girls who clearly will grow up as Nantucket Sisters.

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