Waking up in Charleston

Amanda O'Leary is a widow raising her children in the South Carolina Low Country, and she has fallen for her preacher, Caleb. He is the man who organized the building of a snug new home for her family when her future looked bleak. Her wealthy, overbearing father, Big Max, never did as much for her.

Caleb knows a dozen reasons why his attraction to Amanda is wrong. He is her pastor, and he is supposed to counsel her with a clear head, which gets harder around a woman this spirited and determined to keep her chin up.

The complication is Big Max, who has trusted Caleb with two secrets. Caleb knows his first duty should be to repair the rift between father and daughter. He is, however, much more tempted to find a place for himself in Amanda's heart.

This is a contemporary small-town romance with a Southern setting. The central pull is the forbidden quality of the match, a minister and a parishioner who are both trying to do right by the people around them. The tone is warm and gently humorous, with a family estrangement running alongside the love story.