Nobody said a fresh start would be easy
A clean slate is exactly what Katie Gallagher needs, and Bar Harbor, Maine, is the best place to get it. Except the cottage her grandmother left her is overrun with woodland creatures, and the police chief, Aiden Cavanaugh, seems determined to arrest her! Katie had no idea she’d broken his heart fifteen years ago...
“Kelly’s debut book is smart, sexy, and so much fun. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Laurie Benson, author of the Secret Lives of the Ton series
“Chief Cavanaugh of the Bar Harbor Police Department, ma’am.”
He looked down at his portfolio and then back up at me, eyes cold. “You trashed your husband’s car and then ran, is that right?”
I thought it would be different if I left, if I came to the place I’d been the happiest. Even without Gran, I’d imagined being here would comfort me and help me figure out what the hell to do with myself now that I understood what was apparent to everyone else, that my life was a pathetic sham. I leaned forward, dropping my head to the table. Repeatedly. My brain needed a reboot.
A large, warm hand settled on my shoulder, the heat sinking into my bones. I looked up through wet lashes, and I saw it. I knew who he was.
“Aiden?” I sat up straight to better study him. “Aiden Cavanaugh?”
His hand fell away, and I missed its weight and warmth at once. Unbelievable. How the hell had sweet, oddly geeky Aiden Cavanaugh morphed into tall, dark and forbidding?
I’m excited—and more than a little terrified—to share with you my debut novel, Welcome Home, Katie Gallagher. At its core, this is a story about second chances, a story about starting over. We all deserve a do-over.
I love writing strong, funny women who fulfill their dreams on their own terms. For instance, when Katie envisioned what her life would be, she never once imagined depression-induced insomnia, being wedged into a battered car with a one-hundred-and-forty-pound dog, grape soda splattered in her lap, a fecund, mushroomy odor she wasn’t entirely certain she could pin on the dog, and a cop tapping at the window. Nope, she sure didn’t see that coming.
But it’s in times like these that we learn who we are. Katie could have stayed with a cheating husband who never looked at her except to find fault. She could have. Or she could have taken his expertly weighted and fitted golf clubs to his beloved BMW. Some of us find clarity through yoga, others through criminal behavior. And, let’s face it, a mug shot is a pretty clear indicator that different choices should have been made.
I hope you enjoy Katie’s fraught journey. Warning: there is a hot, grumpy cop, an adorably massive dog, snickering marmosets, cupcakes, and a woman trying like hell to make a home for herself.
Seana Kelly
Welcome Home, Katie Gallagher
Seana Kelly
SEANA KELLY lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two daughters, two dogs and one fish. When Seana isn’t dodging her family, hiding in the garage and trying to write, she’s working as a high school teacher-librarian. Seana is an avid (who are we kidding? obsessive) reader who is still mourning the loss of Fred Weasley. What the heck, J.K.? If you had to kill off a Weasley, why couldn’t it have been Percy?
For Mom and Dad,
who taught me the importance of
integrity, hard work and storytelling.
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