CURE FOR THE COMMON BREAKUP

A Delaware beach town that's famous for being the best place to recover from a breakup embraces Summer Benson, an injured flight attendant intent on healing.

After a lifetime of running from place to place and man to man, Summer thinks she may be ready to settle down with Aaron, a dreamy pilot everyone tells her is the ideal man and who seems ready to pop the question. But after a disaster forces everyone to pause, Aaron reconsiders his options—“I love you. But I don’t love you enough”—and Summer is left to lick her wounds, emotional and physical. Finding her way to Black Dog Bay, she immediately connects with locals in a way she hasn’t since her teen years; for the first time in her adult life, she feels ready to stay put for a while. Add in Dutch, the sexy mayor who makes her heart pound more than Aaron ever did, and Ingrid, his teenage sister, who makes her heart squeeze, and Summer may actually consider long-term plans. But her dreams for the future meet a huge obstacle when the local curmudgeon and real estate mogul takes a personal interest in her and decides to use her as a pawn in a power struggle steeped in past vendettas that puts the idyllic town at risk. Kendrick’s writing is witty and captivating, and her characters are an endearing swirl of complexity—especially Summer, with her external brashness and internal subtlety. The plot whistles along, taking a few unexpected turns that make the inevitable happy ending more textured and satisfying.

With snappy dialogue and a breezy tone that still manages to support emotional depth, the author keeps us turning pages and rooting for Black Dog Bay and everyone in it.