A Place to Belong

Abbie Williams

Central Avenue Publishing (SEP 22) Softcover $16.99 (416pp), 978-1-77168-207-7

Abbie Williams’s coming-of-age romance, A Place to Belong, is set against Midwest and Northwestern prairie backdrops.

Seventeen-year-old Millie, like all of her women forebearers, has loved and labored in Landon, Minnesota, at the Shore Leave Café for as long as she can remember. Millie and her family love their hometown, but they also have strong ties to Montana, which is where Millie first met and fell in love with Wy.

Millie’s close-knit family views her feelings for Wy as nothing more than a crush, but she knows it’s much more than that. Wy, who is six years Millie’s senior, is the love of her life. She’s determined to finally share her feelings during Wy’s annual visit in the fateful summer before her final year of high school.

Baring her heart brings Millie and Wy to a new level of understanding and mutual feelings that go far beyond their existing friendship. Relishing in their new romance, the two exist in an all-too-short state of bliss. The consequences of Wy’s recent actions back home force him to return to Montana, leaving Millie brokenhearted in Minnesota.

Millie and Wy are kept apart by their families’ archaic understandings of the right and honorable things to do. Each struggles to move on with their lives, though hoping and praying to be brought back together once more.

This newest series installment shares its picturesque setting through authentic descriptions of the bustling cafe on Flickertail Lake and of Montana’s vast landscapes, while its apt depictions of family and romantic love express the lengths to which people will go for those they care about.

Tackling topics of forbidden love, honor, and the importance of family, A Place to Belong is a heart-wrenching and satisfying romance.