Sea of Love: A Bayberry Island Novel (32 page)

Dear Reader,

I hope you’ve enjoyed Ash and Rowan’s story and your visit to Bayberry Island.

I came up with the idea for the Bayberry Island novels while on a writing retreat on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. While I took long solo walks on the beach, day after day, a kernel of a story began to form in my mind. I thought about how magical the ocean was, and how it was one of the few things in this overanalyzed world that could still elicit a sense of awe. I thought about how love had much in common with the sea—both were beautiful, deep, and life-giving, but sometimes dangerous and unpredictable. I saw a dolphin dance in the waves and smiled to myself, thinking that it was no wonder there have been folktales about mermaids for as long as humans have sailed the oceans.

Love, magic, and mermaids . . .

I hurried back to the beach house and got out my laptop, and for the next several days, I had the pleasure of letting a place, a family, and a story begin to reveal itself to me.

The Bayberry Island novels focus on the members of the Flynn family, descendants of the island’s founder and benefactor, and ask a fundamental question: Can the bronze mermaid statue in town square really grant true love to those who kiss her hand and ask with an open heart? Come on, now. I don’t write those kinds of books. My novels are based in the here-and-now, with characters who could be your neighbors or friends, people who face familiar challenges and long for real-life happiness and joy. I don’t write supernatural stuff.

Still, even I have to shake my head at what happens to the Flynns in the course of these three novels. Mona and Frasier Flynn, the parents, have let their thirty-five-year marriage crumble. And their grown children—Duncan, Clancy, and Rowan—haven’t exactly been lucky in love. Yet by the time their stories are told, some pretty incredible events have unfolded.

Some say you don’t need magic to find love, that love is the magic. I’ll let the reader decide. All I ask is that you keep an open mind, and come back to visit again soon.

Next up: Clancy and Evelyn’s story. I hope to see you there.

Love,

Susan Donovan