“A great pick for your book club this summer.” —Working Mother
Crushed by guilt over the car accident that killed her father and sister, and torn apart by her mother’s resentment, Darcy Goodridge fled her family estate eight years ago and hasn’t looked back. Now an unexpected phone call threatens to upend what little serenity she’s found. Her nephew, Emerson, who was just a baby when his mother died, has gone missing. Darcy must return home and face her past in order to save him.
Once back in Ohio, Darcy realizes there’s more to Emerson’s disappearance—and to the sudden retirement of her mother, Rosalind—than meets the eye. As she works to make inroads with Rosalind, Darcy begins to unravel a decades-old secret that devastated her family and forced a wedge between her and Michael Varano, the man she left heartbroken when she vanished after the funeral. After carrying the scars of that fateful night for almost a decade, Darcy is determined to find closure, healing, and maybe even love where she lost them all in the first place—right back home where she belongs.
She can’t change what’s come before. But letting go could bring healing—and the rare love that comes once in a lifetime.
When Ohio pastry chef Jada Brooks and her two best friends restored the glorious Wayfair Inn, it was a boon to Sweet Lake—and to their own lives. Now Linnie and Cat are focused on private matters: one engaged, the other swept up in newlywed bliss. Jada has also begun looking to the future by dating widower Philip Kettering and forging a sudden, sweet bond with his six-year-old daughter.
But the past isn’t finished with Jada. When a curious guest checks into the Wayfair, her delving questions stir Jada’s guilt about the heartbreaking events that scarred the town seven years ago. The risks Jada must take by revealing the truth will test every assumption she’s made about the meaning of family and the magic of enduring love.
Cat Mendoza needs a win. After a business failure and years of dating the wrong men, she's ready to turn things around.
First she must convince the residents of Sweet Lake, Ohio, that she's taking her responsibilities seriously. As the events director of the newly restored Wayfair Inn, she has the support of her best friends, Linnie and Jada. But everyone else-including her overprotective mother and the well-meaning Sweet Lake Sirens-can't help but chime in with advice about her plans, her apparently too-tight clothes, and her undeniable attraction to Ryan D'Angelo, the charming ad exec hired to promote the inn.
Cat knows she should keep Ryan at a distance, but she's drawn closer by the heartbreak he tries to hide. Will uncovering his secrets derail the new life Cat hopes to achieve . . . or will she gain something to cherish forever?
Linnie Wayfair knows just how many people are counting on her. But knowing doesn't make doing any easier. Everyone in Sweet Lake, Ohio, wants her to muster all her business sense and return the Wayfair Inn to its former glory. Her parents hope she'll forgive her scoundrel of a brother and reconcile the family. The eccentric Sweet Lake Sirens want her to open the inn-and her heart-to new possibilities. And her hilarious lifelong friends Jada and Cat are dropping none-too-subtle hints for her to ignite a romance with Daniel Kettering, the sexy attorney who's been pining for her for years... Now a shocking turn of events will open old wounds and upend the world Linnie has carefully built. She has to make changes quickly-and the results, though not entirely what she expected, might be what she's been yearning for all along.
