Seabreeze Inn

Ivy Marin's life comes apart twice: first when her husband dies, then when she learns he quietly emptied their savings to buy a crumbling historic estate on the California coast. Broke and out of options, she leaves her life behind for Summer Beach with her recently jilted sister Shelly, intending to sell the place and start over.

The house has other ideas. Restoring it turns up secrets from the town's past, and turning it into a bed-and-breakfast means winning a zoning variance from a town council led by Bennett Dylan — the mayor, Ivy's old high-school crush, and the man who once campaigned against her husband's plans for the property. Bennett lost his own wife a decade ago and has no interest in risking that again.

The first book in Jan Moran's Summer Beach series, Seabreeze Inn is a gentle, character-led women's fiction romance about starting over in midlife, sisters, and the slow work of making a home out of a wreck.