One Summer Night

August 21, 2017
In a passionate modern Romeo and Juliet–inspired story (with a much happier ending) that opens a contemporary romance series, Pineiro (Under the Boardwalk) develops the forbidden love between sensitive, spunky retail heiress Maggie Sinclair and stoic real estate scion Owen Pierce. Three decades earlier, Maggie and Owen’s fathers, formerly best friends and business partners, had an ugly fight, supposedly over real estate. They bequeathed that animosity to their children. Inconveniently, Owen and Maggie have been attracted to each other since they were young, and chemistry arcs between the two when they reconnect at their families’ side-by-side beach houses in Sea Kiss, N.J. Owen’s bitter father threatens to disinherit Owen if he dates Maggie, so Owen comes up with a desperate plan: he pretends that he’s only marrying Maggie to gain control of her faltering retail chain. A cast of lovely, imperfect supporting characters—including Owen’s entrepreneurial younger brother, Jonathan; Maggie’s friend Emma, a wedding planner avoiding love; and her friend Connie, a workaholic lawyer gunning for partner—neatly surrounds this endearing hero and heroine as Owen’s father attempts to derail their love story forever. Readers will want to visit the charming town of Sea Kiss again and again.