“She’s like sunshine. Like anywhere she is, it’s brighter there.”

Eight years ago, Alex Whitaker crashed his car, upending his life. Since then he has struggled—with his family, with his job, with everything in his life. And has he really been living, or just passing time?

For the last few years, Cecilia Byrne been making her way north in a highlighter yellow van that she calls Nina. Besides the circuitous car trip, she’s on a journey of discovery too, but doesn’t expect to find love waiting for her in a coffee shop in Detroit.

When problems keep them apart, can Alex and Cecilia overcome their differences and start a new season of their lives together?

If I did want to settle down, then the guy would have to be pretty amazing. He would have to be the kind of person that I would want to spend time with, not someone who makes me check my phone every second, hoping and praying that a lion escaped from the zoo and is in the elevator on the way up here, or that a sinkhole is sucking down the city of Detroit and will take me with it.

That's what Juliet Curran thinks, anyway, because anything would be better than getting stuck with Beckett Forsman. Theyre not even friends, and there are so many reasons why it would be a terrible idea for them to become a couple: first that hes her boss, second that he's a snobby jerk, third that she doesn't want to end up with any guy at all, and fourth that she has enough problems without putting someone else into the mix. Way, way too many problems…

Yes, Beckett is good looking (and yes, the words “gorgeous” and “model” could apply to him). Yes, he's smart enough (“amazingly intelligent” is a better description). Yes, he's actually kind, and funny, and generous. Yes, after she gets to know him, she stops hoping that a lion will attack and interrupt their time together. But Beckett doesn't see anything in her except for a woman who works for him and whose life is teetering on the edge of disaster.

And when Juliet starts to tip over that edge, who will be there to pull her back? Her sisters, her brother, her parents? Beckett? And if he needs someone, can she be the person to save him? Are they meant to be apart, just Juliet and just Beckett—or would if be better if they were just together, forever?

It's never going to be the right time for Nicola.

Nicola Curran has spent her life caring for others. First, her six siblings needed someone to raise them, and now she's responsible for the patients in the emergency rooms where she works as a nurse. She also doles out plenty of advice to the tenants who rent a room in her house. Their money goes to cover the expenses that she'd rather not discuss, because there are things about Nicola that she'll never talk about. Never.

Meeting Jude Bowers, who's a wreck of a person, shouldn't have even registered as a tiny blip in her busy life. But in not too long, he becomes a major part of her thoughts, of her worries, and of her…everything. He does need her guidance, of course, but then it becomes clear to Nicola that she needs him, too. His problems are hers, and her own issues? They're still not something she wants to talk about, but things can't go on the way they are. Something has to give, and Jude is afraid that it's going to be Nicola who falls apart just like her aging house.

She never expected happiness, and she never expected love. But then never becomes maybe, and maybe? It could be forever with Jude, if life and if Nicola herself don't get in the way of their happiness.

You never know if your other options might be worse…is the grass really always greener??

Maybe not—and that's why Addie Curran believes in sticking with what she has. Luckily for her, she's totally set with a job, an apartment, and a great boyfriend—her life is exactly as she wants it. There's no need to change a thing.

It's so odd, then, that when she meets Granger Moore, everything gets thrown off. Her boyfriend in particular just doesn't seem to measure up (part of that is literal, because Granger is the size of a bear). And then, when her steady life starts to spin into chaos, it's this new guy, this stranger, who sticks. He's the constant force, the backbone she can rely on.

Except…Addie can take on these new challenges. It's her life and she's the one who will step up and fix it, but if Granger wants to join in? Then he's welcome to come along for the ride, through bad relationships and good, fights with sisters, new languages, a crazy mom, weddings, vultures, and a year in Detroit like she's never experienced before. At the end of it, there's a reward of everlasting love—if they can just get there!

“Sometimes we just don't see what's right in front of us. We don't appreciate people like we should.”

That's what Daniel says, anyway. And was that the problem? Is that why he and Sophie Curran aren't friends anymore? Is that why they didn't speak for a decade, why she didn't even know that he had come home to Detroit to stay?

It isn't as if Sophie has been waiting around for him—no way, because she has a happy, successful life. Very happy. Very successful. Well, it's mostly that way, no matter what her five sisters say about how she needs to change everything, from her relationships with men, to her wardrobe, to her furniture, and eventually, to her job. But it's what their brother does with his own life that really throws everyone into a panic. His problems become Sophie's responsibility…and her (kind of) happy, successful existence is thrown into disarray.

And then, there's Daniel Ryder, suddenly right across the street! For all those years, she never even spared him a thought but now that he's back, she can't seem to bend her mind away from him and the memories of their friendship. She can't seem to pull herself away from his presence, either. She also can't extricate herself from the lies that she has told, to him and to everyone else. They're the foundation of her (not really) happy, successful life, and how is she going to give that up?

Of course, if it's yanked out from under her, the truth will burst free as well—and Sophie's going to have to deal with that if she ever wants real happiness, with Daniel or with herself…