A Summer to Stay (Cedar Falls #1)

Ten years ago, Ava Hanson left Cedar Falls—and Owen Fowler—behind.

Now she’s back, grieving her dad, packing up his cabin, and counting the days until she can return to New York and the career she’s sacrificed everything for. But between the sibling banter that picks up like she never left, a town that hasn’t changed a bit, and a pull toward Owen that hits the second she sees him, staying detached is easier said than done.

Her plan is simple: don’t stay long, don’t reopen old wounds, and definitely don’t fall for Owen again.

But Owen isn’t the boy she left behind.

He’s a devoted single dad, the owner of the town’s beloved coffee shop, and the unlikely buyer of the bed-and-breakfast they once dreamed of restoring together. Seeing Ava again stirs up everything Owen thought he’d accepted, including the future he stopped believing was possible. With grief closing in, an old friendship pulling her back into the fold, and sparks that were never truly extinguished, Ava must decide whether ambition is worth the loneliness it costs, or if the life she ran from—and the boy who never really let her go—is the one she’s been searching for all along.

A slow-burn, small town second chance romance about a single dad, sibling banter, and the kind of nostalgic summer that convinces you home was the answer all along.