The bookshop at water's end

Bonny Blankenship spent her childhood summers in Watersend, South Carolina, with her closest friend, Lainey McKay. They swam among the dunes and the moss-draped oaks, made wishes for happy endings, and slipped into the local bookshop to read in its cool quiet. Then came the night Lainey's mother disappeared.

Now in her early fifties, Bonny is an emergency room doctor whose career is at risk after a tragic mistake. Her marriage is falling apart at the same time. She takes her troubled teenage daughter, Piper, back to the river house she has always loved, hoping to clear her head.

Lainey arrives soon after with her two young children. Together they visit Mimi, the bookshop's owner, who is still entangled with the past and its unanswered questions.

This is women's fiction with a Southern coastal setting, moving between present-day summer and the memories of an earlier one. The days are slow and warm, and the mood is reflective, with a mystery running underneath. The three women try to hold on to a fragile calm, but old secrets and loves from long ago begin to surface again.