John W Burns III

Stefanie Stahl has a husband with renovation ADD. He can't seem to finish anything he starts, and her house is littered with his "projects". If he doesn't smarten up, she swears she's going to murder him and bury him under the pile of scrounged lumber in the backyard. Her friend Griffin James is suddenly single and thinking maybe she needs to sell her fixer-upper and follow her career bliss up the ladder of success, even if that scary ladder is clear across the country.

Frankie Lane knows what’s best for just about everyone but herself. Her divorced sister, Stef, who is too young to give up on love; her shy employee, Elinor; and her daughter, Natalie, who works in Frankie’s shop, Holiday Happiness, and really needs to start her own business selling the delectable chocolates she makes at home; even her best friend, Viola, who is trying to renovate her old Victorian. Frankie knows she could help all of them, if they’d just let her—and if all of her help didn’t end in utter disaster.

Laid off from her department store job, Carmen has perilously little cash and few options. The prospect of spending Christmas with her perfect sister Sofia, in Sofia’s perfect house with her perfect children and her perfectly ordered yuppie life, does not appeal. Frankly, Sofia doesn’t exactly want her prickly sister Carmen there, either. But Sofia has yet another baby on the way, a mother desperate to see her daughters get along, and a client who needs help revitalizing his shabby old bookshop. So Carmen moves in and takes the job.

Thanks to Maddy’s social media savvy, Baby Cakes Bakery is becoming a huge success—so much so that she’s attracted the attention of her former nemesis, the fiancé-stealing Brandy Denton. When Brandy blows into New Bison like an ill wind and disrupts a vlog Maddy’s filming, their argument goes viral. After Brandy’s body is found at Baby Cakes, Maddy instantly goes from viral sensation to murder suspect.

Karissa Newcomb is ready for a new start in a new neighborhood, as far away as she can get from Seattle, where her husband cheated on her with the neighbor who was supposed to be her best friend. She and her nine-year-old daughter are moving on to the city of Gig Harbor on the bay in Puget Sound. She even has a new job as an assistant at a small publishing company right in Gig Harbor. Her new boss seems like a bit of a curmudgeon, but a job is a job, she loves to read, and the idea of possibly meeting writers sounds fabulous.

Bonnie Brinks and her all-woman band, The Mermaids, are the pride of Moonlight Harbor. They’re the house band at The Drunken Sailor, and that’s just the right amount of fame for Bonnie. A lifetime ago, she went to Nashville to make it big, but she returned home with a broken heart and broken dreams. Now she’s got a comfortable life and a brilliant daughter, Avril, who plays for The Mermaids alongside Bonnie and Bonnie’s mother, Loretta.

Jenna Jones has been standing on the shore of the Sea of Love for too long. Even with two good men interested in her, she's been afraid to wade in. According to her best friend, Courtney, she should. The water's fine. Life is great! Practically perfect, if you don't count Courtney's problems with her cranky ex-boss. Maybe Courtney's right. It's time to dive in. When tragedy strikes, everything changes and Jenna's more confused than ever. But this fresh heartache might help her figure out at last who she can turn to when times get tough.

Celeste Jones has plans for a perfect summer with her boyfriend (and hopefully soon-to-be fiancé) - until he dumps her to be with the woman he’s had on the side for months. Heartbroken and furious, Celeste resolves to move on. Finding the one can be tricky, and Celeste's sister, Jenna, is determined to make sure she gets it right this time around. Not that Jenna’s an expert. She’s still trying to sort out her own love life. But if both sisters listen to their hearts, eventually, they’re bound to discover that life - and love - is good at the beach.

The town of Moonlight Harbor needs to convince tourists that the beach is still the place to be - even when the sunshine goes south for the winter. Jenna Jones, new proprietor of The Driftwood Inn, has the perfect idea: a holiday festival called Seaside with Santa. Jenna is happy to throw herself into planning the event. Jenna is busy, but happy. Even with her troublesome ex in the picture, life feels as close to perfect as she's ever known. Until the weather turns her festival into a farce....

Once happily married, Jenna Jones is about to turn 40, and this year for her birthday - lucky her - she’s getting a divorce. She’s barely able to support herself and her teenage daughter. Her aging aunt Edie is finding it difficult to keep up her business running The Driftwood Inn, so she invites Jenna to come live with her and run the place. It looks like Jenna’s financial problems are solved! Or not. The town is a little more run-down than Jenna remembers, but that’s nothing compared to the ramshackle state of The Driftwood Inn.