Cara Rutledge inherited her mother Lovie's beach house on Isle of Palms. She rents the house for the summer to Heather, who suffers from extreme social anxiety. Heather plans to send the summer painting shore birds, for a postage stamps commission. When Cara suffers a life changing tragedy, she wishes only to return to the beach house that had once been her port amid life's storms. The two start out as strangers, but together they rediscover their...

Lovingly renovated, located by the sea in a quiet Long Island village, the house is Ruthie Beamish's nest egg-- the retirement account shared with her ex-husband, Mike, and the college fund for their teenage daughter, Jem. The catch? To afford the house, Ruthie must let it go during the best part of the year. This Memorial Day weekend, the renter is Adeline Clay: widowed, elegant, connected, and accompanied by a stepson. But soon Adeline demonstrates...

Renting out his West London home in the wake of marital and career setbacks, an award-winning artist rediscovers his sense of purpose through relationships with a lonely American, a tortured fellow artist, and a cautiously optimistic divorcée. "Bennett Driscoll is a Turner Prize-nominated artist who was once a rising star. Now, at age fifty-five, his wife has left him, he hasn't sold a painting in two years, and his gallery wants to stop selling...