Elin Hildebrand, the author behind "The Five-Star Weekend," tells USA TODAY about the emotional moment ripped from her own life and the surprising reason she became so devoted to Nantucket.Show Caption
Author Elin Hilderbrand has two novels adapted for the screen, "The Perfect Couple" and "The Five-Star Weekend."Hilderbrand has retired from writing her signature Nantucket-based summer novels, with 2024's "Swan Song" being her last.With more than 30 books, many of them best-sellers, it’s easy to imagine that Hollywood would have been knocking on Elin Hilderbrand’s door for years, eager to adapt her stories into movies and TV shows. Nope. It wasn’t until “The Perfect Couple,“ her 21st novel, that one of her works finally made it to the screen. With a megawatt cast (Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Meghann Fahy, Dakota Fanning and Eve Hewson), it racked up impressive Nielsen ratings.Now “The Five-Star Weekend“ has arrived on Peacock. Adapted from Hilderbrand’s 2023 novel, it follows Hollis, a best-selling cookbook author and food influencer, as she gathers her friends for an overly planned and sometimes awkward girls’ weekend. The cast again is stacked, with Jennifer Garner, Gemma Chan, Chloë Sevigny, Regina Hall and D’Arcy Carden.Hilderbrand, 56, doesn’t envision actors as her characters while she’s writing (“you just never know what’s going to happen,” she says), but when Garner’s name came up during show development, it felt like kismet.“Partially because of her fake cooking show and partially because she’s just the world’s greatest human,” Hilderbrand tells USA TODAY. And when the deal was official, “I screamed, obviously.” Garner is also an executive producer on the show.“She leads by example. She is so thoughtful and intentional and inclusive and generous of spirit. She’s everything you think she is from watching her,” Hilderbrand says. “And I love it when there’s somebody that is in the cast that’s taking charge of everybody.”Hilderbrand’s one rule for Hollywood adaptations The “Queen of the Beach Read” is unsentimental about how her books are modified for the screen.“In some recent adaptations of other books, there has been brouhaha that it’s different. People get upset,” she says. “People were upset about ’The Perfect Couple.’ What happened with ’The Perfect Couple’ is that Netflix wanted a six-episode murder mystery. There are really great love stories in ’The Perfect Couple,’ but those did not really get much airtime because that’s not what Netflix wanted.”Hilderbrand is clear she has no issue with that. “I am a person who fully believes in the word adaptation,” she says. “You have to change a book to make it compelling TV. People can go and read the book — and I hope they do — but the show needs to move at its own pace so that every episode keeps you wanting more.”With “Five-Star Weekend,“ she gave showrunner Bekah Brunstetter “carte blanche” to make the best television. “It’s much more important for me to have a really good show that’s different from the book than have something that sticks to the book and is a mediocre show.” Her one non-negotiable? Nantucket. “The only thing I was concerned about was Nantucket. I wanted to make sure that Nantucket was done authentically and correctly," she says.Her protectiveness of the island stretches back years, in part because Nantucket saved her, in a way, during a difficult time in her life. After three summers living there, Hilderbrand traveled to Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa in Iowa City and was surrounded by “cornfields and pig farms and silos and not a body of water in sight.” She had recently married, but her husband was back in Nantucket.“I was miserable, miserable,” she says.She took advantage of the free therapy at the university. “I would go every week and cry. And my therapist said, ‘I think you should start writing about Nantucket.’ I was like, ‘You're right, it is special, and I’m going to write about it.’” That ultimately became her first novel, “The Beach Club.”If the critiques at Iowa were hard to endure (“nobody liked my work”), Hilderbrand never doubted she would be successful as an author. “I had a lot of encouragement from a very young age,” she says.When she was in second grade, teachers spotted her talent. “Every kid got an award. And my award at age seven was the top author award. And I’m like, ‘Yes, I am an author. I knew it!’”Her parents were also extremely supportive, and she recalls one moment from her teen years specifically. “I worked in my dad’s law office over the summer and we got on the elevator with one of his colleagues, and the colleague turned to me and he said, ‘So you want to be a lawyer?’ And my father was like, ‘Oh no, she’s far too talented to be a lawyer. She’s going to be a writer.’” How ’Five-Star Weekend’ mirrors Hilderbrand's own lifeHilderbrand’s father tragically died when she was 16, in a plane crash. And while grief is a theme in many of her books, she channeled her memories into “Five-Star Weekend” specifically. Hollis’ husband dies and her daughter, Caroline, must deal with the death of her father.“I lost my dad when I was 16, so Caroline was really easy for me to write. There is a line where she says [to Hollis], ‘You can get another husband. I’m never going to have another dad.’ I think I said that exact line to my mom,” Hilderbrand recalls. “I can remember feeling like I have lost somebody irreplaceable.”Her fans, who call themselves “Hilderbabes,” may be grieving a bit because Hilderbrand has officially retired from writing more Nantucket-based novels. The “very intentionally titled” “Swan Song,” in 2024, was her last. She’ll still write (her second book with daughter Shelby is due this fall), but she was deliberate in announcing her retirement.“I wanted to prepare my readers because they are so loyal and devoted that the Nantucket summer books are coming to an end,” she says. “For 23 years, I provided a Nantucket-based summer novel ... I wanted every one to be unique and beautiful and good and captivating. I knew that I was going to come to a point where I’m just like, I can’t do it anymore.” Hilderbabes can at least relive the beach ecstasy through the latest adaptation — and perhaps there will be more Hilderbrand books brought to the screen.“I fully credit Lianne Moriarty with my success. When ’Big Little Lies’ did well, my phone started to ring,” Hilderbrand says. “And what I hope is that if ’Five-Star Weekend’ does well, that other writers, their phones will start to ring.”
