Sometimes you sense something, deep inside, long before it's proven true. Thirty-year-old Petra Quirk has always felt as if a vital element of her life is missing. It's not until she moves back to the small town of Eliot's Corner for the summer that she learns why. Rummaging in the attic, Petra comes across a diary. The discovery prompts her mother, Elizabeth, to make a confession to her three daughters. Decades ago, she fell in love with her husband's best friend, Chris--and Petra is Chris's child...

Elizabeth ended the affair before she learned she was pregnant, and Chris has no idea he's a father. Hugh, who Petra believed to be her dad, was a good-natured but self-centered, blustering man. He and Chris seemed to have little in common, though their friendship was genuine. Elizabeth loved Chris deeply yet refused to tear her family apart. Even since Hugh's death, she's resisted contacting Chris. But Petra, floundering and unsure of her path, is compelled to search out her biological father, though she knows it will complicate her relationship with her family.

Over the course of two summers, decades apart, romance will be kindled and rekindled, life-altering decisions made, and secrets of the heart will come to light at last.