April Gives Up the Ghost

At forty-five, April doesn't believe in ghosts. But she knows something about being haunted.April Polinski spent years surviving a marriage with an emotionally abusive husband. When she discovers he's been unfaithful—with her closest friend, no less—she walks away mistrustful of others, longing for the historian career he convinced her to abandon, and navigating the changes of middle age. With nowhere else to go, she lands in a quiet coastal town in Maine, renting a tiny apartment from her sister's best friend Meredith. Impossibly competent, suspiciously kind, and radiating joy April no longer believes in, Meredith has a loving husband, a warm home, and an unshakable conviction that the town is touched by magic—the fantasies, April thinks, of someone who's never been betrayed. Then chance throws a job at the historical society into April's path, along with the legend of Lavinia, a local widow who believed her lost-at-sea husband returned as a ghost. As April digs into the mystery, the widow's story begins to echo her own, and she finds herself embracing a life she never dreamed the town could give her. But years of having her judgment undermined have left her questioning herself at every turn. And she's wary of the things that might be worth believing in—friendship, belonging, and a budding romance with Asa, a steady, confident man who understands what it means to start over. Maybe the ghost is real. Maybe some mysteries are better left unsolved. Either way, April is beginning to learn that healing means making peace with her ghosts and leaving room for the unexpected.