Few novelists touch our hearts, quicken our souls, and enrich our lives like Luanne Rice. Now she brings full circle one of her most compelling explorations of the heart . . . all the ways it can be broken . . . and the magic that makes it whole again. On the windswept coast of Nova Scotia, two friends and their young daughters have found refuge in the rugged community of Cape Hawk. Lily Malone and nine-year-old Rose are making a new home with a man who will do whatever it takes to protect them. Marisa Taylor and young Jessica are beginning to recapture the music that once filled their world with joy. But now a stranger from faraway New England has made his way to Cape Hawk, bearing secrets from the past and news of an uncertain future. And each woman will face choices that will irrevocably shape all the seasons to come—between lives left behind, mysteries unsolved, and loves that must be reclaimed or abandoned forever. . . .  “Luanne Rice has enticed millions of readers by enveloping them in stories that are wrapped in the hot, sultry weather of summer . . . she does it so well.”— USA Today “Luanne Rice has enticed millions of readers by enveloping them in stories that are wrapped in the hot, sultry weather of summer . . . she does it so well.” — USA Today Few novelists today write with the power to move our hearts, quicken our souls, and enrich our lives like Luanne Rice. In "New York Times bestsellers such as "Dance with Me, Beach Girls, and "The Secret Hour, she vividly captures the dramas that make all the difference in love and families. Now, revisiting the remarkable characters introduced in her bestselling "Summer's Child, she brings full circle one of her most compelling explorations of the human heart...all the many ways it can be broken...and the magic that can make it whole again. Their lives were a tapestry woven together by love and loss, tragedy and hope. On the windswept coast of Nova Scotia, Lily and her eight-year-old daughter, Rose, are struggling to embrace a new life even as Lily tries to let go of painful memories of the past. Among the lives that will touch theirs are those of Liam Neill, a dedicated teacher living in self-imposed isolation; Maeve Jameson, mourning the loss of a granddaughter she devoted her life to protecting; and Mark Murphy, a dogged police detective obsessed with a woman who vanished years ago-who may or may not have found what he seeks in a tiny, out-of-the-way maritime village. During this eventful summer of roses, the paths-and fates-of these unforgettable characters will intersect in ways that none of them could ever expect-and shape a future none of them could possibly foresee. For each of them it will be a time of renewal and transformation that will circle inevitably to a past left behind, a mystery unsolved, and a love reclaimed. "Summer of Roses is vintage Luanne Rice-a novel that celebrates the ties of family, the passion of lovers, and the deep, unbreakable bonds that hold ustogether through all the seasons of our lives. Luanne Rice is the author, most recently, of Last Kiss and Light of the Moon , among many other New York Times bestsellers. She lives in New York City and on the Connecticut shore. Summer of Roses Chapter 1 How does a person reenter a life she left nine years earlier? Knowing that there had been a relentless search for her, that her picture had been plastered on the front pages of every newspaper in Connecticut and beyond? Understanding that every local police department remained on the lookout for her? Realizing that all but one of her friends and family have given her up for dead? The answer is, she walks right in the front door. That’s what Lily Malone did in the very-early-morning hours of August ninth. Just past one A.M., Liam Neill parked his truck in the turnaround at Hubbard’s Point, lifted Rose–sleeping, after the long drive from Nova Scotia–and followed Lily down the stone steps. Lily glanced at the arch over the wishing well–there was the house name, Sea Garden, its letters just a little more rusty, a bit more filigreed from the salt air, than they had been nine years earlier. The sight gave her a pang so deep, she gasped out loud. Lily was really home. A breeze blew off Long Island Sound–salt water, just like the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Maritime Canada, where she had lived and hidden these last nine years. But this night breeze was warm, gentle, filled with scents of marsh grass and sandy beaches–instead of the fjord’s arctic cliffs and cold, clear water flowing straight off the pack ice. “Oh my,” she said out loud, alive with the thrill of finally coming home. The roses greeted her–their perfume filled the air, and if the ones growing up the trellis beside the front door were slightly less well tended than they’d been nine years ago, they were still profuse and extravagant. Lily reached up, through the thorns, to feel underneath the shingle just beside the dark porch light, and there it was–the key h