Gansett Island Series

Maddie Chester is determined to leave her hometown of Gansett Island, a place that has brought her only bad memories and ugly rumors. Then she’s knocked off her bike on the way to her housekeeping job at McCarthy’s Resort Hotel by Gansett’s “favorite son,” Mac McCarth himself. He’s back in town to help his father sell the family resort and has no intentions of staying long. But when he accidentally sends Maddie flying over the handlebars, he moves in to nurse her back to health and help care for her young son. Soon he realizes he just may be “maid” for love.

Joe Cantrell, owner of the Gansett Island Ferry Company, has been in love with Janey McCarthy for as long as he can remember. All this time, though, Janey has been dating or engaged to doctor-in-training David Lawrence. When things go horribly wrong between David and Janey, she calls her “fifth brother” Joe, one of the few people in her circle on the mainland. Janey decides a few days with Joe is just what she needs before she goes home to face her family with the news of her broken engagement. Will he take advantage of this opportunity to show her what they could have together?

For four of the best summers of his young life, Luke Harris was in love with Sydney Donovan, a wealthy seasonal visitor to Gansett Island. Then Sydney went off to college and never came back. She married another man and had two children, while Luke remained on the island, wondering what went wrong. Fifteen months after Sydney suffers the tragic loss of her husband and children, she's returned to Gansett to figure out what's next, and that may be a rekindled love affair with the one man from her past she’s never forgotten. But is she ready for a second chance at love?

Since he won the Academy Award for best original screenplay a few years ago, Grant McCarthy's personal and professional lives have fallen apart. Abby, the woman he was supposed to marry, is engaged to someone else, and Grant is back at home on Gansett Island helping run the family marina business while his father recovers from a serious injury. While all of Grant's focus should be on winning back the love of his life, the pesky marina restaurant manager Stephanie is working her way under his skin—and into his bed.

All her life, Grace Ryan has been the “fat girl.” Taunted and teased and ignored by her peers, she's tried every diet ever invented to no avail. Desperate to change her life with her twenties slipping away, she decided it was time for drastic measures and had lap-band surgery. More than a year later, she's lost 130 pounds and is venturing into the dating world for the first time. When Grace refuses to have sex with the new guy in her life during a boat trip to Gansett Island, she finds herself abandoned without a dollar to her name at McCarthy's Gansett Island Marina.

Owen Lawry has made a living as a traveling musician and enjoys his footloose lifestyle. But after meeting Laura McCarthy and helping her land the job as manager of his grandparents' hotel on Gansett Island, he decides there's something to be said about a roof over his head and a woman in his bed. Laura, a newlywed who discovered that her husband never quit dating, came to Gansett for her cousin Janey's wedding, but ended up staying after she met Owen. As their attraction simmers, they form a tight bond that will be tested when her estranged husband refuses to grant her a divorce.

Tiffany Sturgil steals the spotlight as her new boutique Naughty & Nice opens in downtown Gansett—right in time for the annual spring Race Week festivities. Finally divorced and ready for a new beginning, Tiffany wonders if sexy police chief Blaine Taylor thinks of her as often as she thinks of him since their explosive encounter last fall. Back then, he directed her to call him the second she was officially divorced, but the opening of her store and her unconventional ad campaign have put the island's lingerie queen at odds with the town's top cop.