Saltwater Secrets

On Nantucket’s windswept shores, an old estate hides a woman who has kept herself locked away for decades. But with the Colemans, this summer might bring healing, second chances, and the courage to let go of the past.

For Hilary and Marc, their long-awaited spring wedding feels like a dream, a love finally claimed in midlife. Their daughter, Aria, believes she’s living in a fairytale. But when her own relationship shatters, Aria is left adrift, moving back home and burying herself in the design business she shares with her mother.
Then comes the unexpected call. Dorothy Wagner, the enigmatic widow of a controlling man, wants her estate restored. Opening her doors after twenty-five years of silence, Dorothy offers Hilary and Aria more than a project. She offers them friendship and good humor and curiosity. Drawing on the mysteries of her past, she pushes Aria to begin again.
Dorothy’s plans reach beyond Nantucket. She sends Aria to Manhattan, to a brownstone steeped in betrayal and glamour, insisting she create something new from the ruins of her husband’s past. And when Dorothy passes suddenly, her will ties Hilary and Aria’s fates to her daughter, Renée, a woman brittle with resentment, certain her mother never loved her.
As the women sift through the secrets Dorothy left behind, they uncover the story of a life both glittering and tragic, and in the process, they are forced to confront their own wounds, their own loves, and what it truly means to build a life of beauty from the broken pieces.

A sweeping tale of mothers and daughters, of love lost and found, of the secrets we inherit and the homes we carry within us—Saltwater Secrets is a story of healing, legacy, and the women who dare to begin again.