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Gretchen Andrews is a homegrown Cape Cod lifer. She's just a regular girl studying to be a teacher, making ends meet by waitressing at the Diamond Excelsior Resort.
At least, that was the case before Memorial Day weekend.
Brady Hawthorne is the Assistant Manager at the Diamond Excelsior's main restaurant. That is, until Gretchen comes along and takes down his summer plans in one fell swoop. Lesson learned: Never ask a girl who can't walk in heels to be your lead server in private dining…unless you want to lose your job when she inevitably dumps a tray of hot seafood in a celebrity's lap.
Now in the height of tourist season, Gretchen and Brady find themselves wageless with mounting bills and few options for traditional employment. As the job search becomes dire, Gretchen seizes an opportunity working at the Cape's premier, underground bachelorette-party destination, a place where she never expects to find the boss who fired her wearing next to nothing while dollars rain down around him Niagara-style.
When the owner skips town and leaves Gretchen to manage the (probably illegal) operation for the unforeseeable future, she enlists help from the only person she knows who understands that desperate times call for desperate measures. Gretchen and Brady begrudgingly bump and grind their way from enemies to partners-in-crime in a matter of weeks. Gretchen puts it all on the line - her family, her new love-interest, and her professional future - by two-stepping into a spotlight that was never meant for her.
Melly Andronikashvili is a *hot* mess.
She’s 31 years old, finishing up marriage #1, entering possible-career #6, and trying to be the consummate maid-of-honor to her super successful BFF, famous romance author Gracie Landing.
It is not going well.
When a hurricane suddenly cancels Gracie’s destination wedding, Melly recruits the arrogant best man, Dom, to plan a surprise wedding with her - only fate steps in and cuts Melly out of the plans, leaving Dom alone (with Melly’s mom and crazy neighbor) to pull off the wedding of the century. He enlists the help of wannabe author Rebecca Rydell, a move that inadvertently puts Melly’s job and her friendship with Gracie at risk, all in an attempt to impress her. What was supposed to be a low-key destination wedding escalates into a category-5 catastrophe that forces Melly and Dom to put their cynicism on pause while racing against the clock to create a happily-ever-after for their favorite couple. Ultimately, they discover that love takes many forms, and that sometimes, the only way to be pleasantly surprised is when life throws your plans out the window.
Cecily Jane Allerton is living the dream.
Not her parents’ dream, of course. They want her married with kids before her ovaries shrivel up. But experience has taught Cecily that men aren’t worth the trouble. Instead, she’s off to pursue her real love: writing commercial fiction in Matthias University’s low-residency MFA program on Block Island.
PEN-Award-winning-author Nate Ellis is the poster child for impostor syndrome. His sophomore novel is late – very late – and he’s hoping that by accepting an adjunct teaching job at Matthias, he’ll find the juice he needs to finish his flailing work-in-progress. So what if the faculty either ignore him or hate him and the students are all righteous literary snobs?
Well, except one: Cecily Jane Allerton – that scrappy girl with the blue glasses who will stop at nothing to become a literary success.
Over a brush with death from some bad lobster, Nate and Cecily strike up an unlikely friendship – one which is compromised by dried-up professor Alice Deveraux, who seems to be on a witch hunt to get Nate fired. When a drunken mistake between Cecily and Nate goes viral, Devereaux believes she’s got just the ammo she needs to get him off the payroll for good. Combing through University by-laws, the pair realizes that the only way for Nate to keep his job (and for Cecily to keep her sole friend in the cutthroat world of the MFA) will be for them to get married. But in order to make it believable, they'll have to trick everyone - even themselves - into believing they're madly in love.
Which should be a piece of cake… right?
