First Star Tonight
(2026)(The second book in the Star Harbor Second Chance Christmas Romance series)
A novel by Nina Potter
Thirty-one years of marriage. A divorce planned for January. One last Christmas to fake for the children.
Diane and Ray Brennan are calling it quits. Their agreement is simple: give their three adult children one last perfect Christmas in Star Harbor, Maine, then file the paperwork on January 8th. The performance is flawless. The smiles are fixed. The secret is safe.
Then the blizzard hits.
With the kids forced to leave early and the power knocked out, the quiet house becomes a pressure cooker. No audiences to perform for. No daily routines to hide behind. Just two estranged people and years of unspoken resentment.
As the storm closes in, the silence fills with what the noise had been covering. Ray is not ready to let go of the only woman he has ever loved. Diane is starting to see that the real reason their marriage cracked was not a loss of love; it was a loss of attention.
Now they have to decide: is their marriage worth a second chance?
First Star Tonight is a closed-door, later-in-life second chance romance with a retired firefighter who rants about blade angles instead of saying I love you, a school principal who will organize a blizzard evacuation but cannot ask her husband to stay, and a nor'easter that has no patience for January filing dates.
Tropes: Marriage in trouble • Performing a happy marriage • Snowed in, forced proximity • Midlife reinvention • Later-in-life romance • Small-town Christmas • Coastal Maine • Closed door • HFN guaranteed
DATA BLOCK: Heat Level: Closed Door Tone: Sharp, Emotional, Intimate Series Type: Book 2 of 6 in the Star Harbor Second Chance romance series Ending: HFN POV: Dual POV, Third Person, Past Tense Setting: Star Harbor, Maine, Christmas through New Year's
Genre: Romance
Diane and Ray Brennan are calling it quits. Their agreement is simple: give their three adult children one last perfect Christmas in Star Harbor, Maine, then file the paperwork on January 8th. The performance is flawless. The smiles are fixed. The secret is safe.
Then the blizzard hits.
With the kids forced to leave early and the power knocked out, the quiet house becomes a pressure cooker. No audiences to perform for. No daily routines to hide behind. Just two estranged people and years of unspoken resentment.
As the storm closes in, the silence fills with what the noise had been covering. Ray is not ready to let go of the only woman he has ever loved. Diane is starting to see that the real reason their marriage cracked was not a loss of love; it was a loss of attention.
Now they have to decide: is their marriage worth a second chance?
First Star Tonight is a closed-door, later-in-life second chance romance with a retired firefighter who rants about blade angles instead of saying I love you, a school principal who will organize a blizzard evacuation but cannot ask her husband to stay, and a nor'easter that has no patience for January filing dates.
Tropes: Marriage in trouble • Performing a happy marriage • Snowed in, forced proximity • Midlife reinvention • Later-in-life romance • Small-town Christmas • Coastal Maine • Closed door • HFN guaranteed
DATA BLOCK: Heat Level: Closed Door Tone: Sharp, Emotional, Intimate Series Type: Book 2 of 6 in the Star Harbor Second Chance romance series Ending: HFN POV: Dual POV, Third Person, Past Tense Setting: Star Harbor, Maine, Christmas through New Year's
Genre: Romance