Excerpted from THE RAINY DAY BOOKSHOP, by RaeAnne Thayne. MIRA Books, 2026. Reprinted with permission.
Oh man, he had it bad.
Bryce walked through the cramped bookstore aisle, hardly aware of where he was. After all these years, Emma Lucas was actually here, within the same four dingy walls.
He had known she was coming back. Rosie had talked of little else for the past week, ever since Sylvia’s accident when Emma had finally agreed to return to Wood Briar.
He had worked long hours to finish upgrading the two guest bedrooms and bathroom at Rosie’s comfortable house overlooking Crescent Beach, aware with each nail he pounded and each board he measured that this would be for Emma.
Seeing her again felt like a punch to the gut. His heart raced, and his palms grew sweaty. He had wanted her for so long, dreamed of her countless nights, and now she was here, flesh and blood, more beautiful than he remembered.
The yearning he thought he had buried years ago came rushing back with a vengeance, threatening to overwhelm him.
She had certainly changed in eight years, since the last time he had seen her in person. That moment seemed seared into his memory, though.
Bryce had been standing in the hallway of Wood Briar High School, near his locker. He was late for his first-hour English class and knew Mr. Olsen would write him up. Again.
He had only been on time for first hour maybe a dozen times the entire second trimester of the school year, partly because he passionately hated English class. Dan Olsen was an ass, a petty tyrant who delighted in making someone like Bryce Kendall feel even more stupid than he usually did.
Unfortunately, even if the guy had been his favorite teacher, Bryce still would have been late. Every morning was a chore to make sure his mom was up and alert or she would never make it to her job at the cheese plant. If he didn’t push her, he would come home from school before heading to his own part- time job at Lucas Construction to find Terri either drunk again or still in bed nursing a hangover, eight hours after he had left the house.
As he stood in the bookstore, the memory of that day eight years ago flooded back, vivid and painful. He could almost smell the musty scent of the school hallway, feel the cold metal of the lockers against his back.
Emma had come out of the principal’s office looking triumphant and defiant, a dangerous glint in her eye that both thrilled and terrified him.
“What are you so happy about, Em?” Bryce had asked, startled by the unfamiliar expression on her face. It had been so long since he’d seen her genuinely happy that the sight was almost jarring.
“You can be the first one to congratulate me. I’m done here.”
“What do you mean? Done with what?” he had asked, feeling slow and stupid, as he often did around her. “School. This whole shit show.” He had stared at her, dumbfounded. “What do you mean? You can’t drop out! We still have another trimester before graduation.”
He could have told her exactly how many days they had left in school, down to the hour. He had been looking forward to that day for most of his life, when the endless torture session he called school could finally be over.
She had shrugged and hurried to her locker, which had been right next to his. As she yanked it open, she said, “I just took my last final. I have enough credits to graduate now. I could flunk every single class in the final tri and still graduate with a B-plus average. I’ve had enough.”
“Of what?”
“All of it. School, Wood Briar. My mom. I’m done. Kevin has a job offer in Vegas so I’m going with him. We’re going to find a little apartment off the Strip. Maybe I’ll get a job as a cocktail waitress at a casino or something.”
“You’re only sixteen. You can’t be a cocktail waitress unless you’re twenty- one.”
“I’ll be seventeen this summer. But fine. I’ll get a job at McDonald’s, then. Anything is better than here.”
Bryce had been stunned and upset, unable to reconcile this hard-edged Emma with the girl he thought he knew. There was a brittleness to her voice, a coldness in her eyes.
“What about prom? Graduation? College? I thought you were accepted to Oregon State?”
“You think I give a flying eff about any of that?”
Her words hit him like a slap. What happened to the brainiac who had once been on track to be their class valedictorian? He struggled to understand what had changed her so drastically over the past year.
“Does your mom know you’re leaving town with a pot dealer who is eight years older than you are?”
Emma paused in her frantic locker-emptying. “No. And you can’t tell her either. Not until I’m gone and she can’t do a damn thing about it. Swear it, Bryce.”
“No.” He slammed his locker door closed. “It’s not right. He’s a grown man and you’re still a kid.”
Anger flashed in Emma’s eyes, and she whirled on him.
“What I do is none of your business. Got that? It’s my life. Keep out of it, Bryce, or I’ll tell everyone in school you were the one who snuck into the faculty lounge and put laxatives in the coffee machine.”
That hadn’t been enough of a threat. He wouldn’t have cared if she told the whole school, even if it meant he was suspended. Again.
But even then, he had realized the futility of trying to stop her. Emma had been on a twisted path for more than a year, since her dad died, and she was determined not to let anybody drag her off of it.
Back in the present, Bryce was struck anew by the shock of seeing her again, so much the same but so different.
A Contemporary Small-Town Story of Family, Community and Books
Life is full of plot twists...
Sandwiched between caring for her mother and rebuilding the relationship with her estranged daughter, Emma, Rosie Lucas’s life is full. In the best way. With Emma and her 3-year old daughter, Olive, back home, Rosie has a partner for The Rainy Day Bookshop, the family business, and a chance to fix the past. What she doesn’t have time for is a romantic relationship. And even if she did, Andrew Morgan is the last person she’d choose. Not only is he an arrogant and reclusive writer, but he’s a single dad with two young kids. She’s already been there, done that. Still as an irresistible flirtation builds between them, he becomes her unexpected confidante on the distance Rosie can’t seem to overcome with Emma, a secret she can’t quite unravel…
Emma isn’t proud of her past. But she’s pulled herself up by the bootstraps, caring for her own daughter, and protecting her mom at all costs. Just as she always has. She never told Rosie what she saw all those years ago and she never will. But some secrets refuse to stay buried, and sometimes the truth is more shocking than fiction. Rosie and Emma will have to navigate an unimaginable path forward. Together.
Don't miss these other great reads from RaeAnne Thayne:
- Snow Kissed
- The Lost Book of First Loves
- The December Market
- 15 Summers Later
- The Cafe at Beach End
Small Town | Women's Fiction Friendship [ MIRA, On Sale: June 2, 2026, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781335013200 / eISBN: 9780369764195 ]
Family drama hoping for a reconciliation
Stories of Hope, Healing, & Heart
RaeAnne Thayne will do anything to tell a story. In 15 years as a newspaper reporter and editor, she rode along with a motorcycle gang, took a trip in a hot air balloon and even gave a hunky country music star her home phone number (it was for an interview -- honest!).
When she wasn't working as a journalist, though, RaeAnne worked on her real love -- writing romance novels. She dreamed of publishing a book long before she ever thought it was possible. In fact, college friends used to spend hours when they should have been studying, trying to help her come up with a good pseudonym (none of which she actually ended up using, since she writes under her own name!).
After graduating from college, she took a job as a reporter at a daily newspaper, then moved to news editor. It wasn't until she was home on maternity leave after the birth of her first child in 1990 that RaeAnne seriously tried her hand at fiction writing. She sold her first book in 1995 and quit her editor job two years later to write full-time.
She is a two-time recipient of the Heart of Romance Reader's Choice award and has been a finalist for the RITA and for the National Reader's Choice award.
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