Emma Dance has the chance to reclaim the happiest time of her life or leave it behind and build a new future. Which will she choose?

Emma made her best childhood memories at the beach at Emerald Isle, NC with her great aunt, Eva, at her aunt's home, Beach Heart. Years later, Emma finds herself a widow, broken emotionally and financially, and at odds with her stepson Macon. He's grown now, but only ten years younger than Emma, and they'd been close. The final fracture of their relationship occurs when Emma sells the family home to cover debts incurred during her husband's long illness, and this is one more heartbreak piled on top of many others. On the lowest day of her life, she receives the unexpected gift of her aunt's oceanfront home. Emma hardly questions it. She's simply grateful for a place to hide from life while she recovers-and may even be able to reclaim the happier days she remembers from the past.

But time and life don't wait, and memories are only that-memories.

The beach is lovely, yes, but nothing else is the same, and Emma discovers that keeping the gift may be more of a burden than she can manage.

Emma finds unexpected blessings mixed with heartache, and secrets that her return will now expose. She will have hard decisions to make-decisions that will impact her present and her future, as well as that of others.