First published 2025
Abe Winter and Ruth Warneke should never have worked as a couple. Their disastrous blind date in college somehow led to seven decades of marriage on a Bainbridge Island farm with chickens and their Labrador, Megs. The Winters built a steady partnership through losses and secrets, falling out of sync and finding their way back together. Now Ruth discovers her loose tooth signals something far worse. Her independence crumbles as the illness progresses. Abe struggles to become her caregiver while their three adult children doubt his capacity to handle the responsibility. The couple must reshape their relationship once more, just as they did when they transformed from mismatched college students into parents, weathered separations, and reunited. Evison weaves their decades together with their current crisis, revealing how two opposites created a lasting bond through ordinary moments that add up to extraordinary love.
Genres: romance, literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, second-chance
Setting: Bainbridge Island
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
368 pages · Hardcover · Dutton
Content warnings: terminal-illness