It's 1987, and twenty-seven-year old Hillary Martin is pretty certain that magic is real. Sure, she had to give up her cherished position as a library aide in order to manage her parents' country store in the idyllic Pocono Mountains, but with a husband who makes her heart sing and a baby girl who's filled her with a love greater than she even knew possible, she's come to realize that happily-ever-after can be more than just words on a page. After her husband loses his job, though, Hillary finds that maybe she never really knew him as well as she thought. A long stint of unemployment, a miscarriage, a struggle with infertility - their fall is such a slow one, they don't even realize the depth of the drop until it leaves them unable to climb back up. Devastated by the ensuing divorce, Hillary and her daughter Noelle lean on each other as they pick up the pieces of their shattered world. They are a team, and that's more than enough. But when Hillary falls in love again, with a man who has the power to tear their family apart and sever the mother-daughter bond that was supposed to be unbreakable, will it be enough? Will anything?
Not if you ask Noelle. As a child, she looked to her mother as a safe place. Now, as an adult, she sees nothing in her but betrayal and heartbreak. It's why she fled the Poconos, why she dimmed the light on her passion for astronomy, and why she's perfectly content these days to work in the restaurant at the Anchor Stop, an oceanfront hotel on Tybee Island. Life is settled there, secure and steady - until a new hotel opens across the street, drawing away the Anchor Stop's guests, threatening to close its doors for good, and leaving Noelle with the very real possibility of losing the life she's rebuilt. As she fights to keep the Anchor Stop afloat and to figure out whether she's brave enough to act on the feelings she has for the man who's become one of her closest friends, Noelle must decide: is it better to play it safe, or to finally step out of her mother's shadow and let the stars align in a new way?
