Elin Hilderbrand visits CBS This Morning to discuss her breast cancer diagnosis and her new novel

June 12, 2014 | News about
• Elin Hilderbrand

Elin Hilderbrand is known as "The Queen of the Summer Novel" for her 13 books set on the sandy shores of Nantucket. On Thursday, June 12th, Elin talked with "CBS This Morning" co-hosts about how her cancer diagnosis coincided with a subject in her newest book, THE MATCHMAKER.

“I cannot help but draw parallels with the protagonist of The Matchmaker, Dabney Kimball Beech. I spent many months trying to put myself in Dabney’s penny loafers, asking myself: What would it feel like to find out you had cancer? How would you react? Would you do things differently? Would you do things the same? I tell my audiences that I don’t write from real life, and yet I had Dabney handle her situation the way I thought I would have. She is brave, she prays, she sets her affairs in order, she smiles, she cherishes the days she has left, and she is most worried for the people she is leaving behind.

I told myself that if I could write a character like Dabney, then I could be like Dabney. I would accept the fact that my body and its current failings were my own, and I would fight and I would smile and I would do everything in my power to live to write thirteen more novels and sit on my throne and let the ocean lap at my feet.”

Click here to watch the full video of Elin on CBS This Morning.

Click here to read her inspiring story on the Huffington Post.