NYT Best-Selling Romance Author Names the 'Perfect Beach Read' and Says, 'It's a Delicious Escape'
When the "Queen of the Beach Read" gives a recommendation, you'd better pack the book for your next trip out to the shore. Elin Hilderbrand - the New York Times best-selling author behind novels like The Perfect Couple, Here's To Us, and 28 Summers - recently gave some love to a new summer thriller, Lila Raicek's The Plunge.
"I loved this!" wrote Hilderbrand on Instagram on Tuesday (June 16) while holding up her copy of the NYT best-seller. She described Raicek's debut novel as a "New York cool girl novel (in the vein of Emma Cline) and the second half of the book is set on Lake Como in August, so it's a delicious escape and a *perfect beach read.* Highly recommend!"
Hilderbrand's followed soon chimed in. "Nice! On by [to-read list] thanks to you," wrote one fan. "Just purchased on your rec!" said another, adding, "Looking forward to plunging into this at the beach." "This looks so good!" added USA Today bestselling author Meg Mitchell Moore (Down with the Shipmans).
Lila Raicek returned the love to Hilderbrand in the comments section: "Ahh, thank you so much for taking the PLUNGE with me, Elin!!! You are an inspiration!"
Described as "the smart, sexy, scandalous read of the season" by Town & Country (via Harper Collins), The Plunge is a mix of dark romance and suspense, as the main character, Liv, flees New York after her fiancé's shocking death. After reconnecting with a former neighbor, Liv plunges headfirst into a passionate affair, until an investigative journalist threatens to expose a "shattering secret" from Liv's past and bring her world crashing down.
The Plunge is Lila Raicek's debut novel, as she's best known as a successful playwright. This book came out of a dark period in my own life when I was grappling with loss and really thinking about the process of starting over," she told The Hollywood Reporter in April. Raicek began writing the novel in 2021, four years after she broke off her engagement with Amazon executive Roy Price after a TV producer accused him of sexual harassment.
"I was in a period of grief and confusion trying to understand how to rebuild after loss," Raicek told Bustle. "I set out to write a novel that really explored that murky and turbulent space of aftermath, which I feel like has not necessarily been addressed in literature, that isn't linear, that isn't ruly, that's messy. And I found myself asking the question, how do we often have to plunge into a darker place to find ourselves again?"
The Plunge is out now, via Park Row/Harper Collins. As for Elin Hilderbrand, she and her daughter, Shelby Cunningham, will release The Thoroughbreds, the follow-up to the NYT best-selling The Academy, in September via Little, Brown and Company/Hachette.
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This story was originally published June 16, 2026 at 10:30 AM.