Heartwaves — Anita Kelly

Mae Kellerman is content. After forty years of ups and downs, she has a meaningful job at a queer community center in Portland, Oregon. She has an apartment full of plants, a ride-or-die group of friends. Until the day her best friend actually does up and die. Leaving Mae with a hole in her heart—and a shocking amount of money. But before she can think about that, she has to throw his perfect death party, followed by spreading his ashes on the Oregon Coast. It's there that she stumbles upon an empty storefront for sale in the tiny whale-watching town of Greyfin Bay. Overnight, an old dream resurfaces…and Mae's newfound inheritance could make it possible. If only Dell McCleary didn't stand in her way. Dell only sells property to the folks actually invested in the best interests of Greyfin Bay. Not some Portlander with pink hair who breezes in on a whim. A Portlander who, irritatingly, refuses to take no for an answer. As Mae upends her life for the pursuit of opening a queer-owned bookstore in a conservative coastal town, she and Dell are forced to work together, navigating prejudices and past traumas along the way. But as opening day of Bay Books grows nearer, Mae's heart grows increasingly tangled with her landlord's—even if his own heart might already belong to someone else.  Heartwaves is a contemporary queer romance that explores the risks and rewards of life in any landscape, and the freedom to lift the limitations we put on love. Anita Kelly's books always burrow deep into my heart and expand it in the most beautiful way...Heartwaves is such a special book and I'm jealous of every person who gets to read it for the first time. - Alicia Thompson, USA Today bestselling author of With Love, from Cold World