The Five-Star Weekend

After her husband’s sudden death exposes fractures in the life she had carefully maintained, food blogger Hollis Shaw brings together women who represent different eras of her past for a Nantucket gathering. The planned Five-Star Weekend gives the novel a clear social frame: childhood friendship, college history, adult marriage, career pressures, family strain, and an unexpected guest all converge in one shared space. Old romance resurfaces alongside present-day betrayals and private crises, while Hollis’s relationship with her daughter remains part of the emotional landscape. The book uses the reunion to examine how friendship changes across decades, and how people confront the versions of themselves they have carried forward.