Sputtering Hearts of Thistlemoss

Marnie Copperfield had every intention of turning around. Driving a dying 2003 Civic down a lane the GPS couldn't find, she was only returning to Thistlemoss long enough to settle the estate of a grandfather she'd barely known. Forty-three miles of cracked tarmac and sky-swallowing hedgerows. A cottage caked in oil and dust. That was all she came for, then she could disappear again. But Thistlemoss doesn't let people leave so easily. There's Sooty, the one-eyed black cat who refuses to leave the porch. There's Gramps, whose silence hid a box of letters she was never meant to read. There's Tilly Whitcombe, who serves bitter tea and biting truths. There's Mayor Fennick, nursing old grudges and a quiet deal with Lord Ashworth that would swallow the village whole. And there are the others, Pearl and Mabel, Zig and Pip, Dot and Kevin, each one carrying their own sputtering heart, each one a thread in a tapestry Marnie never knew she was missing. When the eviction notices arrive and the clock starts ticking on Ashworth's offer, Marnie must choose: take the money and abandon a town she's only beginning to love, or stand with a handful of stubborn souls and fight for a future none of them dared imagine. Some inheritances are bigger than property. Some of them require everything you have.