The Saltwater Connection

By M. A. Barlee

She came back to restore a house. She did not expect the town to remember her.

After twenty-three years away, Mara Calloway returns to Hartwell Cove, Maine, with a clipboard, a deadline, and a career-defining restoration project: Clearwater House.

The work should be simple.

Three months. One historic waterfront property. Then back to Boston, where her life is orderly, successful, and safely distant from everything she left behind.

But Hartwell Cove remembers.

So does Cole Mackay.

A boatbuilder and heritage contractor with his own quiet history, Cole knows Clearwater House better than anyone. He also remembers Mara, or at least the woman she used to be, before leaving became the only answer she could find.

As the house begins revealing what time has hidden, Mara is drawn back into the rhythms of the town, the work of restoration, old friendships, and the quiet pull of a life she never quite stopped wanting.

But coming home is not the same as belonging - and some things can only be rebuilt if you are brave enough to name what broke.

A quiet, atmospheric novel of second chances, found family, coastal memory, and the places that call us back.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0H8DT64G2
• ISBN13: 9798186651949
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 150 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"