One stubborn lighthouse. One small coastal town. Zero interest in selling their soul. When a glossy foundation swoops into North Harbor with big checks and bigger strings, Dockside coffee trailer owner Maeve Callahan finds herself running point for a different kind of rescue. The town’s 150-year-old lighthouse needs saving—so does the way they belong to it. Maeve’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Tessa, is offered a life-changing STEM scholarship that comes with gag clauses and photo ops. Evelyn Whitcomb—town archivist, keeper of unsent letters, and Tessa’s grandmother—knows too well the cost of choosing legacy over your own life, and she’s done letting the next generation pay it. With a nor’easter bearing down on the annual Jubilee and donors urging postponement, the community rewrites the plan on the fly: Open mics instead of town fights, a “Fix-It Bar” staffed by tinkerers, rope-light thermometers, and buoy lanterns swinging under a tented boatyard. Harbor master Jonah, a man who can tie down a gale and a grudge, reminds Maeve to aim her formidable fight at the problem, not the people. As storm and politics peak, Tessa and her robotics team crowdsource a miracle from salvaged parts, and the town chooses access over exclusivity—live, on the record. Warm, witty, and full of civic joy, this is a love story in every direction: between mothers and daughters, neighbors and their place, stubborn hearts and second chances. There’s a secret in the lantern room, a slow-burn romance that refuses grandstanding, and a community that proves you can keep a light without selling its name. For readers of Remarkably Bright Creatures, The Pumpkin Spice Cafe, and anyone who believes a coffee trailer can be a headquarters and a lighthouse can be a promise, The Beam is a celebration of making—and keeping—home.