Firefly Summer (29 page)

Nan Parson Rossiter was born in Mount Vernon, New York; some of her earliest memories include riding a green Stingray bike—complete with banana seat and sissy bar—to the Pelham Library, which at the time was a tiny, cavelike space tucked beneath Hutchinson Elementary School. It was from the shelves of this library that Nan first discovered the magic of books. Some of her favorite characters included Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Pippi Longstocking, Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Harriet the Spy.

When she was in the seventh grade, Nan moved with her parents to Barkhamsted, Connecticut. She graduated from Northwestern Regional 7 High School and went on to the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating in 1986 with a degree in illustration. After freelancing for several years, she began writing and illustrating books for children, including
Rugby & Rosie,
winner of Nebraska's Golden Sower Award, and most recently,
The Fo'c'sle: Henry Beston's Outermost House
. In 2011, Nan published her first novel,
The Gin & Chowder Club
; she is also the author of
Words Get in the Way, More Than You Know, Under a Summer Sky,
and a short Christmas story in the anthology
Making Spirits Bright
.

Nan lives in rural Connecticut with her husband and their two handsome sons. When she is not working, she enjoys hiking with her family or curling up with a good book.

 

The friendship between the Coleman and Shepherd families is as old and comfortable as the neighboring houses they occupy each summer on Cape Cod. Samuel and Sarah Coleman love those warm months by the water; the evenings spent on their porch, enjoying gin and tonics, good conversation, and homemade clam chowder. Here they've watched their sons, Isaac and Asa, grow into fine young men, and watched, too, as Nate Shepherd, aching with grief at the loss of his first wife, finally found love again with the much younger Noelle.

But beyond the surface of these idyllic gatherings, the growing attraction between Noelle and handsome, college-bound Asa threatens to upend everything. In spite of her guilt and misgivings, Noelle is drawn into a reckless secret affair with far-reaching consequences. And over the course of one bittersweet, unforgettable summer, Asa will learn more than he ever expected about love—the joys and heartache it awakens in us, the lengths we'll go to keep it, and the countless ways it can change our lives forever....

 

The modest ranch house where Callie Wyeth grew up looks just as she remembers it—right down to the well-worn sheets in the linen closet. But in the years since Callie lived there, almost everything else has changed. Her father, once indomitable, is in poor health. And Callie is a single mother with a beautiful little boy, Henry, who has just been diagnosed with autism.

Returning to this quiet New Hampshire community seems the best thing to do, for both her father and her son's sake. Even if it means facing Linden Finch, the one she loved and left for reasons she's sure he'll never forgive. Linden is stunned that Callie is back—and that she has a son. Yet in the warm, funny relationship that develops between Henry and Linden's menagerie of rescued farm animals, Callie begins to find hope. Not just that her son might break through the wall of silence separating him from the world, but that she, too, can make a new start amid the places and people that have never left her heart....

 

Losing her father on the night she was born could have torn Beryl Graham's family apart. Instead, it knitted them together. Under their mother's steady guidance, Beryl and her older sisters, Isak and Rumer, shared a childhood filled with happiness. But now Mia Graham has passed away after battling Alzheimer's, and her three daughters return to their New Hampshire home to say good-bye.

Swept up in memories and funeral preparations, the sisters catch up on each other's lives. Rumer and Isak have both known recent heartache, while Beryl has given up hope of marriage. But surprising revelations abound, especially when they uncover Mia's handwritten memoir. In it are secrets they never guessed at—clandestine romance, passionate dreams, joy, and guilt. And as Beryl, Rumer, and Isak face a future without her, they realize it's never too late to heed a mother's lessons—about taking chances, keeping faith, and loving in spite of the risks....

 

The old Cape Cod house that Laney Coleman shares with her minister husband, Noah, and their five boys is usually brimming with cheerful chaos. There's nothing fancy about the ancient kitchen or the wooden floors scuffed by the constant parade of activity and the clicking claws of their two Labrador retrievers. It's a place to savor the sea breeze wafting through the windows, or sip coffee on the porch before another hectic day begins. This summer, life promises to be even busier than usual, because Noah's younger brother, Micah, wants to hold his upcoming wedding on their property.

Though thrilled that Micah has found happiness after past heartache, Laney is apprehensive about having her home turned upside down. She has other concerns, too—her youngest son is being bullied at school, and Noah's father is not the robust patriarch he once was, in mind or body. As the bride's and groom's large, close-knit families gather, there will be joyful celebration but also unexpected sorrows and revelations, and a chance to store up a lifetime of memories during the fleeting, precious days of summer....

 

Over twenty-five years ago, Liam Tate and Acadia McCormick Knox fell in love. It was summer on Nantucket, and seventeen-year-old Liam knew that wealthy, college-bound Cadie was way out of the league of a local boy who restored boats for a living. Yet the two became inseparable, seizing every chance to slip away in Liam's runabout to secluded spots, far from the world that was trying to keep them apart.

After Cadie returned home to New York and discovered she was pregnant, her parents crushed any hope of communicating with the boy she'd left behind. Unanswered letters and calls couldn't change Liam's heart, but over the years he's settled into a simple, solitary life in his rambling beachfront house. Now he's learned that Cadie is returning to Nantucket for the opening of her son's art show. Over a weekend of revelations and poignant memories, Cadie and Liam have an opportunity to confront the difference time can make, the truths that never alter, and the bittersweet second chances that arrive just in time to steer a heart back home....