Heartwaves

Summary:

Mae Kellerman is content. After forty years of ups and downs, she has a meaningful job at a queer community center in Portland, Oregon. She has an apartment full of plants, a ride-or-die group of friends.

Until the day her best friend and mentor actually does up and die. Leaving Mae with a hole in her heart—and a shocking amount of money from his inheritance.

Before she can think about the cash, she has to focus on throwing his perfect death party, followed by spreading his ashes on the Oregon coast. Only then does she take a breath, and in the process, stumbles upon an empty storefront for sale in the tiny whale-watching town of Greyfin Bay. Overnight, an old dream surfaces…and her newfound inheritance could make it possible.

If only Dell McCleary didn’t stand in her way.

Real estate agent and owner of said storefront, Dell only sells property to the folks actually invested in the best interests of Greyfin Bay. Not some Portlander with pink hair who breezes in on a whim. A Portlander who, irritatingly, refuses to take no for an answer.

As Mae upends her life for the pursuit of opening a queer-owned bookstore in a conservative coastal town, she and Dell are forced to work together, navigating prejudices and past traumas along the way. But as opening day of Bay Books grows nearer, Mae’s heart grows increasingly tangled with her landlord’s—even if his own heart might already belong to someone else.

Heartwaves is a contemporary queer romance that explores the risks and rewards of life in any landscape, and the freedom to lift the limitations we put on love.