❝ No one wants to hear a rich person bitch about a goddamn thing.❞

❝ And you are probably used to men telling you you’re a knockout. Which you are, make no mistake, but I wanted you to know that that’s not why I’m writing. I’ve seen a lot of pretty girls in my life, Lo. “Pretty” isn’t what has me awake at four in the morning, writing this with hands that, if I’m honest, are shaking a little bit.

It’s going to sound stupid, but when I walked into The Line tonight and saw you there by the bar, I swear to God, it was like you just… glowed. Like there was a life force inside you that couldn’t help but shine out. Like you swallowed starlight.❞

❝ The other thing about hope, though? It isn’t just fatal, it’s contagious.❞

St. Medard’s Bay, Alabama is famous for three things: the deadly hurricanes that regularly sweep into town, the Rosalie Inn, a century-old hotel that’s survived every one of those storms, and Lo Bailey, the local girl infamously accused of the murder of her lover, political scion Landon Fitzroy, during Hurricane Marie in 1984.

When Geneva Corliss, the current owner of the Rosalie Inn, hears a writer is coming to town to research the crime that put St. Medard’s Bay on the map, she’s less interested in solving a whodunnit than in how a successful true crime book might help the struggling inn’s bottom line. But to her surprise, August Fletcher doesn’t come to St. Medard’s Bay alone. With him is none other than Lo Bailey herself. Lo says she’s returned to her hometown to clear her name once and for all, but the closer Geneva gets to both Lo and August, the more she wonders if Lo is actually back to settle old scores.

As the summer heats up and another monster storm begins twisting its way towards St. Medard’s Bay, Geneva learns that some people can be just as destructive—and as deadly—as any hurricane, and that the truth of what happened to Landon Fitzroy may not be the only secret Lo is keeping…

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