The Little Bookshop By the Harbor (Up Island #2)

Prologue

Amped. Pulsating. Ready for fun. The sun was warmer; the sky, clearer; the water, bluer. It was the day before Memorial Day weekend; the place was Martha’s Vineyard.

Scanning the tiny harbor of Menemsha, Maddie surveyed the cluster of pleasure boats bobbing in their moorings, the perfectly sculpted dunes sprinkled with tall, waving seagrass, the Rosa rugosa bushes thick with fragrant pink blossoms—all prepped for the new season, all awaiting the onrush of tourists that would start the next day.

She winced.

It was supposed to be her first full, beautiful summer on the island, though after returning nearly a year ago, she often felt as if she’d never lived anywhere else. Her Wampanoag heritage whispered that her soul had never left.

But as she sat at the café table on the deck of her brand-spanking-new bookshop, Maddie feared if she clenched the handle of her teacup any more tightly, razor-sharp porcelain splinters would slice up her palm.

Closing her eyes, she inhaled a shallow breath of sea air, wishing she knew what to do, now that her hopes and dreams and every risk that she’d taken to reboot her future had exploded in a single, vicious, gut-wrenching twist.

And she wondered if, dear God, she should tell Grandma.