Elin Hilderbrand grew up in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa. Her first book, The Beach Club, was published in 2000. Her other works include The Blue Bistro, Barefoot, A Summer Affair, The Castways, The Island, and Summerland. In 2013 she made The New York Times Best Seller List for Summerland and 2014 for The Matchmaker and Winter Street.