The Past That Made Us, by Kelly Marks
Some goodbyes don’t last forever—especially in a town like St. Bell.
Millie Carpenter has built her life around control. A work-obsessed loner, she’s long believed the only person she can count on is herself—a belief shaped by a painful childhood and years of estrangement. But when a cancer diagnosis shatters her carefully ordered world, she’s forced to accept help from the last person she ever expected: her mother.
Returning to the seaside town of St. Bell, Maine, means confronting everything Millie thought she’d left behind—old grief, buried memories, and the man who once held her heart. The golden boy turned lobsterman who vanished when she needed him most.
As chemo drains her strength, Millie faces more than just the physical toll of illness. Long-suppressed wounds begin to resurface—and so do the people who might help her heal, if she can find the courage to let them.
Now, with the biggest fight of her life ahead, Millie must choose: keep running from the past, or embrace the messy, beautiful possibility of second chances.
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