Piece By Piece

A scattered marketing escapee. A puzzle shop owner with a past he refuses to explain. One bookstore wall between them.

Liza Forrester left her high-pressure Charleston marketing career with no plan except this: spend two weeks in Seagrove helping her mother's oldest friend Dixie redo the sad little children's corner at Down Yonder Books, eat her weight in comfort food, and figure out what her life is supposed to look like now. Then Dixie sprains her wrist, two weeks turns into a whole summer, and Liza finds herself running a bookstore in a town where everybody knows her name by Tuesday.

Next door, Grant Whitmore is unpacking boxes in his brand new shop, The Puzzle Post, and hoping nobody asks him a single question. He walked away from a tech career that made him a small fortune, and all he wants now is quiet, order, and a life where no one needs anything from him. Especially not the loud, sunshiny woman on the other side of the wall who keeps waving at him through the window.

Then Julie signs them both up for the summer festival committee without asking either one, and Liza dreams up a Books and Brains night that ropes their two shops together whether Grant likes it or not. She talks too much. He barely talks at all. And she came to town carrying a box of her late father's old crossword books, with no idea how much they're about to matter.

Come spend a summer in Seagrove, where old friends stop by, sweet tea flows on every porch, and two people who drive each other crazy might be exactly what the other one is missing.

Grumpy/Sunshine
Opposites Attract
Small Town Romance
Secret Identity
Forced Proximity
Starting Over
Found Family
Slow Burn Romance
Heat Level: Just Kisses
Tone: Heartwarming
Series Type: Book 13 of South Carolina Sunsets
Ending: HEA
POV: Third Person, Dual
Content Notes: Clean romance, no explicit content, gentle references to grief for a late parent

Perfect for fans of Debbie Macomber, Robyn Carr, and Sherryl Woods. Come back to Seagrove. The porch light's on.