Sunshine and Other Hazards
June Calloway arrives in Heron Cove with one suitcase, a folder of legal documents, and a heart too bruised for sentiment. The beach house left to her by her late Aunt Vivi is a money pit perched on stilts above the surf, and June plans to sell it, settle her debts, and disappear back into a life she controls. The plan lasts exactly one morning. Contractor Theo Brennan greets her with a clipboard and a scowl, a man who has spent the last decade holding Heron Cove together with his bare hands and refusing to ask for help. When the cottage's bones prove more precious than June expected, and the townsfolk start treating her like one of their own, June begins to wonder if she inherited more than a house. Old wounds surface when her reasons for running collide with Theo's reasons for staying, and a nosy neighbor named Marge, a sharp-tongued teenager named Wren, and a quietly persistent local named Elliot each push June closer to the truth she has been dodging. The cottage cannot be sold in pieces, and neither can June. She must choose between the safe, narrow life she built and the messy, sun-drenched one waiting on the coast, knowing that whatever she decides, someone she has come to love will be left on the other side of the door.