Not for those who prefer tarter holiday fare. Perhaps these neatly tied-up plotlines are appropriate at series' end-except that the ambiguous close suggests the end may not be so near after all. In this latest outing, however, the most interesting crises evaporate too soon: Bart’s trauma is quickly eased by love at first sight, Jennifer spins addiction dross into reality TV gold, a little FaceTime tames PJ, etc.

Hilderbrand has quickly put her witty and at times profound stamp on the Christmas genre. Mitzi is already planning to list the inn for sale with Eddie, and judging how well Nantucket real estate has bounced back from the crash, this promises to replenish the depleted coffers of both. Kelley worries about what will happen to Mitzi after he's gone she has no family except their only child, Bart, a former Marine who suffers from PTSD after two years of imprisonment in Afghanistan. A new relationship is working out well for Ava until a visit from her boyfriend Potter’s son, PJ-who's over-the-top bratty even by today’s standards-threatens to upend everything.

Kelley’s ex-wife, iconic anchorwoman Margaret, is regretting, with near-retirement hindsight, that she allowed his second wife, Mitzi, to raise their three children, Patrick, Kevin, and Ava. Characters from Hilderbrand’s recent summer novel, The Rumor (2015), make an appearance: disgraced realtor Eddie Pancik, now out of jail, his wife, Grace, and her erstwhile lover, master landscaper Benton Coe, now returned from temporary exile in Detroit. Due to their straitened finances, wife Jennifer, an interior decorator and former addict, hesitates to tell Patrick she lost a sizable account due to a banker client’s sexual harassment. Kelley’s oldest son, Patrick, is struggling to grow a hedge fund after serving time for insider trading.

Innkeeper Kelley, patriarch of the Quinn family, is in hospice, dying of brain cancer. Fourth in Hilderbrand’s Christmas series about a family-run Nantucket inn.Ĭhanges are looming at Winter Street Inn, seemingly portending the end of this Christmas series.

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