DUNE DRIVE
Book 12 of The Chesapeake Diaries
series
On sale July 31, 2018!
Mass Market Paperback • Price: $7.99 • ISBN: 9781501154416
eBook • Price: $7.99 • ISBN: 9781501154423
Book description
Always believing she was an ugly duckling, Chrissy Jenkins thought she
had finally turned into a swan when her real-life Prince Charming swept her off
her feet. But as his true character began to crack his perfect facade, Chrissy
realized that not only was she better off without him, but that she was the
only one who had the power to transform her life.
Returning to her ancestral home on Cannonball Island for a family wedding,
Chrissy is reintroduced to a legacy she’d all but forgotten. In choosing to
stay on the island, she reboots her life, successfully reinventing herself as a
chef at Blossoms, an up-and-coming restaurant in St. Dennis. But despite her
newfound self-confidence, she still doesn’t trust her taste in men. So when she
meets Jared Chandler, a handsome ship salvager staying at the inn while he
conducts a nearby recovery operation, Chrissy’s certain she can keep him as a
friend—even though he’s everything any woman would want in a man. As fellow
newcomers, together they discover the charm of the historic bayside town and
explore the idyllic island.
But when Chrissy agrees to be Jared’s date for his father’s wedding, they
embark on a weekend that will find them each seeing the other in a completely
different light, one that will change their lives forever.
About the author
Mariah Stewart is the award-winning
New York Times and
USA
TODAY bestselling author of numerous novels and several novellas and
short stories. A native of Hightstown, New Jersey, she lives with her husband
and two rambunctious rescue dogs amid the rolling hills of Chester County,
Pennsylvania, where she savors country life and tends her gardens while she
works on her next novel. Visit her website at MariahStewart.com, like her
on Facebook at Facebook.com/AuthorMariahStewart, and follow her on Instagram
@Mariah_Stewart_Books.
Excerpt
Chrissie stretched one leg as close to the water as she
could and with her big toe traced her name onto the surface, the way she had
when she was a child. The water was cold, true spring being just around the corner, and the chill ran up her leg, but it made her
feel alive. Her brother, Luke, once told her that writing your name on the
Chesapeake meant you were part of it, would always be part of it. She wondered where
Luke was now, and if writing his name on the bay had brought him back from time
to time.
When their parents, Stephen and Dorothy, divorced, Luke
went with their father, and one-year-old Chrissie stayed with their mother. As
far as Chrissie knew, neither father nor brother had ever looked back. It was
as if the earth had opened up and swallowed Stephen and Luke Jenkins body and
soul, as far as she was concerned. Chrissie wouldn’t recognize either of them
if they stood in front of her. Her father had been from the mainland and had no
ties to the island except her mother. Once that bond had been broken and her
mother remarried and moved to Pennsylvania, Chrissie figured her father had no reason
to return. If her mother had heard from either of them, she’d never told
Chrissie, and the few times Chrissie’d asked, her questions were ignored.
The last time Chrissie had asked, her mother had snapped,
“That’s the agreement we made, no contact, and I’m sticking by it. So far, he
has, too. What difference could it make now? He’s never been part of your life.
He never wanted to be. Leave it alone, Chrissie. Don’t ask me again.”
To Chrissie, it was unforgivable on the part of both
her parents—her mother for not telling her why her father left, and her father
for never coming back. Once she’d started examining her life in earnest a year
ago, it hadn’t been difficult for her to figure out that being abandoned by her
father had contributed to the fact that her self-esteem had been so low she’d permitted
herself to be abused. That her mother would never tell her why had only added
to her poor self-image: as a child, she’d assumed he’d left because she was a
bad girl. What other reason could there have been? Now, as an adult, she
realized there’d had to be something other than that, that while children see
everything that happens through their eyes as it relates to them, the constant
arguing between her parents had probably been about something else. Try as she
might, though, her mother would never tell her what that something had been.
She still thought of her father with a mixture of anger
and longing. Had he ever remarried? Was he still alive? And Luke . . . ? She
had no idea if he was dead or alive, either.
