The Summer Worth Keeping
(2026)(The fifth book in the Butterfly Beach series)
A novel by Laurel Leigh
Goldie Winslow has spent a lifetime knowing exactly what Butterfly Beach is worth.
It’s in the first pot of coffee at the Seaglass Café. The rescue calls from the marine sanctuary. The porch lights left on for neighbors. The borrowed dogs, mended friendships, second chances, and old beach paths that somehow lead people back to themselves.
But when a powerful coastal developer arrives with plans to ‘restore’ the town’s aging waterfront, Goldie understands what the glossy brochures really mean. Higher rents. Private access. A polished new version of Butterfly Beach with the heart scrubbed out of it.
And this time, the place everyone loves may not survive on charm alone.
Jess and Kate rally the café. Carla and Ben fight to protect the sanctuary. Angela, Austin, Ellie, Diane, and Wiggles turn one small favor into a town-wide campaign. Maren and Jonah open the cottage to anyone willing to sort photos, bake muffins, write letters, or remember what the beach looked like before someone tried to put a price tag on belonging.
Goldie should be leading the charge.
Instead, she’s facing a secret of her own.
The man advising the waterfront project is Russell Hart, the first love she let go more than forty years ago. He’s older now, quieter, still maddeningly able to see past her sparkle to the places she keeps guarded. Russell insists the project can save Butterfly Beach from crumbling into the sea. Goldie thinks he’s helping strangers buy what was never theirs to own.
Neither of them expects old affection to rise so easily through all that history.
As petitions fill the café wall, storm season creeps closer, and the town’s future comes down to one public vote, Goldie has to decide what she’s really fighting for. The past can’t be restored exactly as it was. Love can’t be protected by pretending it no longer matters. And home, if it’s going to last, has to make room for change without losing the people who made it sacred.
This summer, Butterfly Beach will have to prove it’s more than a pretty place on the coast.
And Goldie will have to decide whether the life she saved for everyone else still has one more beautiful beginning left for her.
Enjoy the Butterfly Beach family coming together, all wrapped up with a sweet romance and plenty of beach-town heart.
Genre: Romance
It’s in the first pot of coffee at the Seaglass Café. The rescue calls from the marine sanctuary. The porch lights left on for neighbors. The borrowed dogs, mended friendships, second chances, and old beach paths that somehow lead people back to themselves.
But when a powerful coastal developer arrives with plans to ‘restore’ the town’s aging waterfront, Goldie understands what the glossy brochures really mean. Higher rents. Private access. A polished new version of Butterfly Beach with the heart scrubbed out of it.
And this time, the place everyone loves may not survive on charm alone.
Jess and Kate rally the café. Carla and Ben fight to protect the sanctuary. Angela, Austin, Ellie, Diane, and Wiggles turn one small favor into a town-wide campaign. Maren and Jonah open the cottage to anyone willing to sort photos, bake muffins, write letters, or remember what the beach looked like before someone tried to put a price tag on belonging.
Goldie should be leading the charge.
Instead, she’s facing a secret of her own.
The man advising the waterfront project is Russell Hart, the first love she let go more than forty years ago. He’s older now, quieter, still maddeningly able to see past her sparkle to the places she keeps guarded. Russell insists the project can save Butterfly Beach from crumbling into the sea. Goldie thinks he’s helping strangers buy what was never theirs to own.
Neither of them expects old affection to rise so easily through all that history.
As petitions fill the café wall, storm season creeps closer, and the town’s future comes down to one public vote, Goldie has to decide what she’s really fighting for. The past can’t be restored exactly as it was. Love can’t be protected by pretending it no longer matters. And home, if it’s going to last, has to make room for change without losing the people who made it sacred.
This summer, Butterfly Beach will have to prove it’s more than a pretty place on the coast.
And Goldie will have to decide whether the life she saved for everyone else still has one more beautiful beginning left for her.
Enjoy the Butterfly Beach family coming together, all wrapped up with a sweet romance and plenty of beach-town heart.
Genre: Romance
Used availability for Laurel Leigh's The Summer Worth Keeping