A Katama Bay Series

Janine Potter grew up on the other side of the tracks. Her mother, Nancy, struggled with just about everything—alcohol, men, money—and Janine made a pledge to herself that she would never be like her. At age nineteen, Janine met Jack Potter, the son of an oil tycoon, and never looked back. Her life became a series of cocktail parties and multi-million-dollar apartments all across the world, and rubbing elbows with celebrities. Slowly, memory of her mother faded, although the trauma never really did.

Elsa Remington Steel pledged to love one man for the rest of her life. Aiden was a bright light, a wild personality, a beautiful soul. He was her husband and the father of her three wonderful children. Two years before, when they learned of his diagnosis, Elsa felt his death coming like a storm. After all, her brother had died at age ten, her mother had died when she was sixteen, and her father's health was on the decline. In Elsa's eyes, her world quickly fell apart. It was just expected.

As a child, Carmella Remington was boisterous, alive: always one to move too fast, laugh too long, and feel too deeply. She was the middle child of Neal Remington, the fraught one between Elsa and Colton. Until one day, Carmella made one of the biggest mistakes of her life—a mistake so wretched that it cost Colton’s life. In the wake of this, Carmella's entire life changed forever.

Ten years ago, Nancy Grimson met the handsome and successful Neal Remington in Bangkok, Thailand. It was a whirlwind romance—one that found her back on Martha's Vineyard, Neal's home, to become a stepmom to Elsa and Carmella, and help Neal with the Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa. Earlier this year, Neal passed away, and earlier this summer, her estranged daughter, Janine, came back into her life after a heartache of her own. It's been a whirlwind of changes, and Nancy continues to reel with pain and sorrow, even alongside her gratefulness.

Six months ago, Janine Grimson learned her best friend had an affair with her husband of twenty years—at the engagement party of their oldest daughter, Maggie. In the wake of that horrific event, Janine rekindled her relationship with her mother, Nancy, moved full-time to Martha's Vineyard, and found herself stronger, better, and brighter than ever before. Now, news from Manhattan shakes her to the core. Something tragic has happened to her ex-husband, Jack Potter—the only man she's ever truly loved—just two weeks before Thanksgiving.

After the recent death of her father, Maggie aches to have a family of her own—but soon learns that the world she so craved will not be hers so easily. While other women in their twenties get pregnant on the fly, she finds herself cursed with a body she no longer understands. But telling this health news to her loving husband or even her mother and sister makes her feel even less in control. She keeps this secret close to her heart and runs back to the Vineyard to grieve alone, pretending all is "just fine." Such is the way of Maggie Potter.

When high flying, workaholic Katy Smith is suddenly made redundant, she needs to find a job fast! After mistakenly answering an advert online, she quickly realises that the rundown railway station in sleepy Cranfield isn’t the 5-star London hotels she’s used to working in! But a job’s a job. Right? Chef Ryan Connelly is having a crisis of confidence after his Italian dream turns sour. Returning home to try to pick up the pieces of his parents broken marriage, he soon discovers that his family home, the railway station, is close to financial ruin.

It's finally time for Carmella to marry the love of her life—her best friend turned boyfriend turned fiancé, Cody. As she grapples with her new role as stepmother to Gretchen, she learns some surprising news about her own situation and finds herself rewriting a future she'd once thought would be aimless and incredibly lonely.

Elsa's middle child, Mallory, is often described as the quietest and sweetest of all the Remington women—just as happy-go-lucky as Elsa, agreeable as Janine, and punctual as Nancy. Needless to say, it never pleased Mallory to be overlooked. But after her accidental pregnancy with her on-again, off-again boyfriend Lucas, plus the death of her father and grandfather in the span of a year, she's had very little time to ask herself that pivotal question: Who am I?

Elsa's eldest, Cole Steel, is on the brink of the rest of his life. Like his father before him, he's a remarkable sailor—but unlike his father, he has no wife, no children, and just the open ocean at his feet. Elsa's not entirely pleased with his reckless nature. But she knows he has the same adventurous spirit his father always had. Aiden lives through Cole every day. Recently, Cole signed a contract to sail professionally. It's the opportunity of a lifetime—with a caveat. His boss is widely known as the toughest in the business.