Something That Stays: A Small-Town Second-Chance Romance Novel

By Hannah Brooks

A Slow-Burn Second-Chance Romance Novel.

At thirty, Ellie Harper's life looks like a disaster. Her Toronto marketing career is over. Her engagement is finished. And she's driving back to the small Ontario lakeside town she escaped at eighteen - the one place she swore was too small to hold her dreams.

Heron's Cove hasn't changed. The fish sign on the county road still has a crack in it. Her mother's bookstore is haemorrhaging money. And Jake Callahan - her high school sweetheart, the one she left without a proper goodbye - is still here. Still steady. Still the most unnerving person she has ever known.

When the bookstore's failing roof lands Jake's name at the top of the estimates list, Ellie tells herself she can be professional about it. She's wrong.

As Jake works to fix the building she grew up in, Ellie fights to save it from a developer threatening the whole main street - and finds herself slowly, reluctantly, understanding that the life she ran from might be the one she actually wants. But Jake has spent twelve years learning not to want things that leave. And Ellie has spent twelve years learning not to stay.

Something That Stays is a heartfelt, slow-burn contemporary romance set against the charm of small-town Ontario - complete with a meddling community, a bookstore cat named Ernest, and two people who have to decide whether the distance between who they were and who they are now is too far to cross.

Perfect for fans of Emily Henry, Jojo Moyes, and Rachael Lucas.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GZBC6971
• ISBN13: 9798259440951
• Release Date: April 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"