The Summer We Found Home
(2026)(The fourth book in the Butterfly Beach series)
A novel by Laurel Leigh
Maren Bishop only comes back to Butterfly Beach to settle the house.
After her aunt’s death, the weathered cottage at the edge of the dunes is supposed to be one more thing to handle, sell, and leave behind. Maren has a life three hours away, a career that keeps her busy, and a long list of reasons she stopped believing home was something that lasted.
Then she unlocks the front door.
Inside are sand-scuffed floors, old family photographs, a kitchen table crowded with memories, and one impossible surprise: her aunt has left the cottage not to Maren alone, but to three women who haven’t been in the same room without smiling politely and leaving early in years.
To keep the house, they’ll have to spend the summer restoring it together.
What begins as a practical project quickly becomes anything but. There are porch boards to replace, family secrets tucked into recipe cards, arguments over what can be saved, and a little free pantry near the beach path that somehow turns the cottage into another gathering place for a town that already knows how to pull people back to life.
And then there’s Jonah Reed.
Once, Jonah was the boy who knew every shortcut through Butterfly Beach and every dream Maren was afraid to say out loud. Now he’s a widowed dad, a contractor with careful hands, and the one person who sees how hard Maren is trying not to need anything from anyone.
Their old almost-love was buried under timing, pride, and a goodbye neither of them handled well. But with every repair, every shared sunset, and every quiet moment on the porch after the others have gone to bed, Maren starts to wonder if the life she ran from might still have a place for her.
If she’s brave enough to claim it.
As the deadline to sell draws closer, Maren must decide what’s worth keeping, what’s finally ready to be forgiven, and whether home is something you inherit or something you build with the people willing to stay.
The Summer We Found Home is a heartwarming Butterfly Beach novel about family, forgiveness, old houses, new beginnings, and a sweet second-chance romance.
Genre: Romance
After her aunt’s death, the weathered cottage at the edge of the dunes is supposed to be one more thing to handle, sell, and leave behind. Maren has a life three hours away, a career that keeps her busy, and a long list of reasons she stopped believing home was something that lasted.
Then she unlocks the front door.
Inside are sand-scuffed floors, old family photographs, a kitchen table crowded with memories, and one impossible surprise: her aunt has left the cottage not to Maren alone, but to three women who haven’t been in the same room without smiling politely and leaving early in years.
To keep the house, they’ll have to spend the summer restoring it together.
What begins as a practical project quickly becomes anything but. There are porch boards to replace, family secrets tucked into recipe cards, arguments over what can be saved, and a little free pantry near the beach path that somehow turns the cottage into another gathering place for a town that already knows how to pull people back to life.
And then there’s Jonah Reed.
Once, Jonah was the boy who knew every shortcut through Butterfly Beach and every dream Maren was afraid to say out loud. Now he’s a widowed dad, a contractor with careful hands, and the one person who sees how hard Maren is trying not to need anything from anyone.
Their old almost-love was buried under timing, pride, and a goodbye neither of them handled well. But with every repair, every shared sunset, and every quiet moment on the porch after the others have gone to bed, Maren starts to wonder if the life she ran from might still have a place for her.
If she’s brave enough to claim it.
As the deadline to sell draws closer, Maren must decide what’s worth keeping, what’s finally ready to be forgiven, and whether home is something you inherit or something you build with the people willing to stay.
The Summer We Found Home is a heartwarming Butterfly Beach novel about family, forgiveness, old houses, new beginnings, and a sweet second-chance romance.
Genre: Romance
Used availability for Laurel Leigh's The Summer We Found Home