The Palms

by Melissa Hill

Escapist fiction from a USA Today bestselling author.
'Elin Hilderbrand meets THE WHITE LOTUS in this addictive poolside read.' ★★★★★ CLOSER

Welcome to The Palms St Lucia; the perfect combination of high-end luxury and tropical Caribbean surroundings. Set on palm-fringed white sand bordered by pristine turquoise waters, the famed five-star resort has long been an oasis of sanctuary for vacationers.

But this season The Palms is under threat.
One hotel visitor is not who they claim to be, and it's up to new guest relations manager, Erin to uncover who could be trying to undermine the beloved resort's reputation and why.

Is it the newly-arrived single groom, apparently jilted before his destination wedding? Or the handsome widower who's just checked in with his cute-as-a-button daughter. Maybe it’s the charismatic CEO who says he's at the hotel to secure a business partnership yet wants to know a lot about day-to-day operations.

In at the deep end firefighting a sudden flurry of resort issues, while uncertain who to trust among management, staff or guests, can Erin outsmart the saboteur intent on destroying The Palms' future - and her own?

'Blissfully escapist, with a hint of mystery...' YOU MAGAZINE.

388 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 1, 2025

About the author

Melissa Hill is a USA Today bestselling author living in Ireland’s beautiful County Wicklow. Her page-turning contemporary novels of family, friendship and romance are published worldwide and have been translated into twenty-six languages.

A Hollywood adaptation of her international bestseller Something from Tiffany's, by Reese Witherspoon's production company Hello Sunshine and Amazon Studios, was released worldwide in Dec 2022.

Other novels including A Gift to Remember and The Charm Bracelet have been adapted for screen by Hallmark Channel USA, with multiple other titles currently also in development for film and TV.

For more info, visit her website at www.melissahill.info

Facebook: facebook.com/melissahillbooks

Instagram: @melissahillbooks

Melissa also co-writes forensic thrillers with her husband under the pseudonym Casey Hill. http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

Reviews

[PB]

All romance, no plot/drama. Cheesy, predictable and lacked depth. I admit I fell for the “Elin + white lotus” title clickbait but it did not live up to either of those comparisons…. so many typos too. In fact this book was so poorly written I think it is AI

[Janet L. Brown]

Product of AI

Obviously written by AI...SO many mistakes and grammar issues, obvious plot etc. Cute story is the best I can say.

[Sophia N]

Really cute and lighthearted- felt like it lacked a little plot and depth. I enjoyed the character POV switches every chapter between Lily, Erin, and Naomi!

[Kasey Verna]

read this bc it was on kindle unlimited. honestly, loved the beginning and the potential of the plot, but it absolutely did not live up to my basic expectations… the plot ended up going nowhere interesting on the mystery/problem solving and just developed purely into a romance book. not at all what i was expecting based on the elin hilderbrand/white lotus comparison. also, there were many grammatical errors that I found distracting as I read.

[Tatum Sandvigen]

I started out loving the book. Perfect mix of detailed vacation fiction and small mystery. It’s acknowledged to be a mix of Elin hilderbrand meets white lotus. And it was that. I was super incest until the last 10% when the ending fell short and was underwhelming. It’s a series so I will probably continue reading it. But hoping the author can give a little more next time.

[Macie White]

2.75 stars for me! Not the worst book I ever read but I felt like there were elements missing!! I think this could have been a really good book but there were so many plot lines that none of them were strong. There also were a lot of typos on the kindle version so that was interesting! I wasn’t waiting for it to end which is why it gets the extra .75!!

[Stephanie Miller]

Cute story but…

The concept of this book was nice, if somewhat predictable. Everything wrapped up neatly into a happy little ending. That being said, the writing left something to be desired. While it did improve toward the end, through most of the story, the author was a little too descriptive. The run-on sentences almost made me give up on this book. If you can make it past that, this book was a fun little read.

[Peaches]

***Spoilers included***

It takes A LOT for me not to finish a book. I have trudged through so many just to be able to write thorough reviews. In fact, my most popular review on Goodreads is for Elin Hilderbrand's The Perfect Couple. Sadly, I just couldn't get through this one. I made it about fifty pages and was so bored it was deterring me from reading. Whoever wrote that it was "Elin Hilderbrand meets The White Lotus" must have been on drugs (or AI) because I wasn't getting it. Truthfully, I haven't seen The White Lotus, but it has enough of a following to know this is not it and it certainly is not comparable to Hilderbrand, who is at least entertaining.

I went to Goodreads to see if I should keep going and saw a lot of people were suspecting it was written using AI, so that was my sign to stop. I also read that it's mainly just a cutesy love story and I don't usually enjoy those.

Final though: A unicorn-themed wedding sounds amazing and I would've much rather read about that.

Good job, Ellie Greene, or AI, for tricking me into buying this awful book.

[JoAnn Wells]

This was good but not great. It was more romance than story for me. It’s like reading 5 episodes of the old tv show Hotel. It goes from one employee to another and their dealings with the guests staying at the Palms hotel which is an older landmark hotel in St. Lucia. Is someone trying to take over the place for the property value it’s worth or is it just a string of bad luck? Erin the new guest manager needs to find out but what if it’s the new guy she’s suddenly getting close to? Anyway that’s the type of storyline. Did I get any hilderbrand vibes? No not really. It’s set on an island and you get some sightseeing throughout the story but nothing that’s going to make me hop a plane and head there.

[Kathryn Laplante]

I had a high hopes because I do really like Elin Hilderbrand books and tropical themed books but it was quite disappointing. I had a hard time getting into it but I kept reading hoping that things would get better. It was very anticlimactic and there were a lot of different characters and storylines going at the same time which made it confusing. I wanted more from this book but it just didn’t get there.

[Kari Walter]

Desperately needs an editor!

The only thing this book has in common with an Elin Hillenbrand novel is an island location. The writing was juvenile and in need of editing (typos along with spelling, usage, and punctuation errors abound). The ending didn’t fully resolve or explain - it feels like the author just stopped writing. An epilogue might have been a useful tool to conclude the story. I’m glad I didn’t spend any money on this title.

[Linda HR]

This book should not be compared to Elin Hilderbrand books. I purchased the book as Elin Hilderbrand is one of my favorite authors. The storyline was not believable with so many people finding love on vacation in a very short timespan. There were also many grammatical errors throughout the book. However, I did finish the book.

[BethanyKate]

If you love Elin, this book is worth the read. It is VERY Elin-esque. Lots of characters, all with their own stories and drama.
I think it's her debut, and it's a pretty decent one. It was very predictable, but still enjoyable. A bit of mystery, that unfortunately turned out to be a flop.
Still a fun read.

[Susie]

Well, the whole “White Lotus” description is misleading. There’s kind of a mystery but it didn’t have a satisfying conclusion. It became clear really quickly that this was going to be a super predictable, rather cheesy romance. I thought about DNFing but I did enjoy the descriptions of the setting and the food lol. 2.5 rounded up to 3.

[Karn]

This book has potential, but would have benefitted from a good editor. There are too many characters with storylines that don’t intersect, except that they are at the same hotel. It was like reading two books at once. Also, the author would benefit from some proofreading, or at least a good editor. There were enough instances of repeated or missing words that it was noticeable.

[Tricia]

This author deserved a better editor. The grammatical errors were silly and distracting; the overuse if a thesaurus was obvious; and the extraneous storylines and irrelevant details were tedious. The story deserved more.

[Amanda Laffin]

The white lotus reference is a stretch and a way to hook you imo if you’re a fan. Otherwise good, easy book read. Felt like some thing were left out and other things were dragged out but still enjoyed reading it

[Lelia McKee]

Elin Hilderbrand is one of my favorites for true escapist fiction and this book was no where close. Too many characters with plot lines going in too many different directions. Typos distracted what little plot there was.

[Cori Kerr]

Similar to White Lotus in that it follows a manager of a hotel bumbling through her day trying to fix things. We’re introduced to many characters who work/came on vacation to The Palms. No major conflicts or plot twists and kind of predictable.

[Barbara Combs]

I liked the story very much. However, the Kindle version had so many grammar mistakes, misspellings, mis-used words and “missing” words, that many lines had to be re-read to make sense and thus besides being annoying, took much longer to read the book. First time I’ve ever had this experience.

[Shelby]

I have literally never read a book with MORE TYPOS in my WHOLE LIFE!!!!!!! Ew!!!!!!! Someone compared this to White Lotus and I’m wondering if they read the same book. So wildly boring. I was expecting some amazing imagery but that part of the writing wasn’t even good.

[Lori Duke]

I liked the premise for this book. That’s why I finished it. The issue is that it was not very well written and had so many proofreading errors, and/or written by AI. That was just the feel of it to me.

[Christy Glassford]

This had a good atmosphere. I actually really like the female lead character until they played her to be an idiot. Then that just rubbed me the wrong way. This book had multiple couple plot lines, and they all ended in a bow, headed off into the sunset. I needed a little more substance!

[Julia]

Good storyline

Terrible editing!!! Ruined the reading experience. Enjoyed the story, otherwise I would have set it aside in frustration. Do better, the author deserves it.

[Shaye Baine]

Cute beach read! Def some white lotus vibes

[jordy Rae]

cutesy beach read!

[Sara Hudson]

This started out so good then turned out to be soooo anticlimactic. Felt no attachment to the characters. It was cute tho!

[Kathy]

Fun plot but the writing was so-so and the editing was not great. Lots of missing words and mid sentence repeats.

[Wendy Morris]

The storyline is fairly good, but overdone. Reading was problematic with many grammatical errors and typos. Needs editing.

[Leslee Horning]

Good book, but the grammatical and typographical errors throughout the book were annoying!