The Cinnamon Bun Book Store (Dream Harbor, #2)

by Laurie Gilmore

Hazel was literally surrounded by amazing stories, books filled with love and adventure and life, but Hazel herself was stuck.

Thirty loomed in the distance, glaring at her menacingly.

For some people, Hazel assumed, thirty meant an end to the wild and storied days of their twenties. A time to settle down, to get serious, to be an adult.

‘Seems unlikely.’ ‘Maybe. But unlikely things happen all the time.’

Summer was short in New England. If you didn’t dive right in, you’d miss it entirely.

She wanted to say more. That he was a breath of fresh air in her musty life, that he was slowly reminding her how to let go, that he was waking her up like the sun after a long winter. But none of that seemed casual.

He smelled like a sunny day, fresh air and freedom. He was summer and she was fall. He was adventure and she was comfort. But right now, on the cusp between the two seasons, in this liminal space they’d carved out for themselves, they fit just right.

Maybe she hadn’t needed to change her life, maybe she’d just needed to change how she saw her life. How she saw herself.

She didn’t need a new life or to be a new person. She just needed to look at herself, at her life, in a new light.

And God, wasn’t that addictive? That feeling that maybe you were enough.

Because what more did one need besides good friends, good books, and the occasional cinnamon bun?