Whenever someone tells you they're ?just fine? . . . they're probably lying!

Caroline O'Connor tells herself everything is ?just fine.? Never mind that her faithful companion dog is mostly deaf, her best cousin's marriage is on the rocks, her mother has Alzheimer's, her father retreats to his study every night, and she's stuck back in Cold River, Missouri, a place she once thought she'd left for good.

There's all that, and Noah Cranwell, too. A far-flung relative of a local family mostly known for running moonshine, the ex-veteran has come home to Cold River with troubles of his own and he has his eye on Caroline and her dog. He also seems to be the key to something that happened to Caroline's mother in the past, something that's been a secret for decades.

Caroline has always believed she knows everything about Cold River and the people who live in its hills and hollers . . . but occasionally life's greatest surprises happen closest to home.