First published 2021
Amelia Saxton is chasing the biggest story of her career when it turns personal. She finds that a set of frozen embryos belonging to her childhood friend Parker have been classified as abandoned by the clinic holding them. Parker lost his wife Greer three years ago and has barely surfaced since. Telling him means reopening that wound. But Amelia tells him anyway. Parker realizes the embryos are his last connection to Greer, and he decides to move forward as a single father with a surrogate. Amelia is freshly separated and carrying her own grief. The two of them work through the logistics of an impossible situation together, back in Cape Carolina where they both grew up, on the water they have known their whole lives. What starts as friendship built on shared loss shifts into something neither of them planned for. This is a story about the families we inherit and the ones we build, told through two people trying to figure out what comes next.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, adult, adult-fiction, contemporary-romance
Vibes: bittersweet, emotional, intimate, reflective, tender
Tropes: forced-proximity, friends-to-lovers, second-chance-romance, shared-grief
Setting: Cape Carolina
400 pages · Paperback · Gallery Books
Content warnings: death, infertility