Summer in a Bottle

by Annie Rains

Genres: Holiday books; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

In this tender, uplifting novel for fans of Josie Silver and Rebecca Serle, a young woman returns to her North Carolina hometown hoping to make new memories, but finds history repeating itself—literally . . .

Dumped by her fiancé, opinion columnist Lyla Dune returns to small-town Echo Cove to heal, and to help her parents prep their house for sale. When she decides to open a time capsule she buried in high school, past memories lead her to a diary filled with memorable moments from the last summer she spent at home, right before college. Some of the events feel like they happened yesterday. That’s normal. Not so normal is that they actually start happening all over again . . .

Lyla gets a flat tire in the same spot and is saved by the same person. The same movie is playing at the theater. Her house has the same leak it once had. As her current summer increasingly mirrors that last one, Lyla worries it will end just as disastrously: with a category 3 hurricane—and with losing Travis, the best friend she was always secretly in love with. If only she hadn’t been too scared to admit it.

She revisits other fears too, like the fear of rejection that led her to abandon her passion for fiction writing. And when she reconnects with Travis, Lyla becomes certain that unless she does what her younger self was unable to do, she’ll suffer the same regrets. But if this time around she can gather her courage, maybe the life that was falling apart when she arrived will fall back together—even better than before.
 

Release date: April 29, 2025

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

Lyla Dune turned in to her parents’ driveway and parked, her gaze moving to the FOR SALE sign on the front lawn. A mixture of emotions rose inside her as she stepped out of her car and headed toward her childhood home, which soon would belong to some other family.

When her parents had broken the news that they were selling their house a couple of weeks before, Lyla had been in the throes of two different deadlines. She hadn’t had time to process what they were asking her to do. They were finally going to take the trip around the world that they’d been dreaming of forever, and they wanted to get started ASAP.

“You work remotely, right?” her mom had asked. “That means you can work from anywhere?”

“Mm-hmm.” Lyla had a copywriting job that was flexible about where and when she worked. She was also the featured writer for “Delilah’s Delusions,” a nationally popular opinion column. In fact, she was kind of a household name, even though few knew Lyla Dune was the brains behind the name. Combined, both jobs paid the bills, but they didn’t feed her creativity, which lately seemed to be funneling out of her like sand into the lower portion of an hourglass. “I can work anywhere and anytime. Why do you ask?”

“Well . . .” Her mom fumbled over a few unintelligible sounds. “It’s just . . . your father and I would like to leave for our trip a little earlier than planned. We were wondering . . .” There was another long silence on the other end of the line.

Lyla envisioned her mom wringing her hands the way she did when she got nervous. What was her mom anxious about? “Just spit it out, Mom.”

“Okay.” Her mom sucked in an audible breath. “Your father and I were hoping—wondering—do you think you could stay at the house until it sells? There are still boxes that need to be donated, and we thought we’d let you pack up your old room. I didn’t want to throw out anything that was special to you.”

Lyla found that statement laughable. At one point in her life, she’d considered herself a sentimental person. Her parents used to teasingly call her a hoarder. Not anymore. Over the last decade, she’d focused on success, relishing her status as a well-known writer, even though she wasn’t the bestselling author of novels that she’d once dreamed of being.

“Me? You want me to stay at the house?” Lyla had been stunned by her mother’s request. First off, her parents never asked her for favors—ever. Her parents were working-class people who had penny-pinched and saved all of Lyla’s childhood just to ensure she was able to attend college the way they hadn’t been. Unlike a lot of her friends, Lyla hadn’t taken out school loans and worked nightshifts in order to pay tuition and rent, even though she’d offered to. In her parents’ minds, they took care of her, not vice versa. That was still the case even now.

Second, Lyla’s parents never trusted her for important things—not since she had clogged the bathroom sink with blue hair gel and flooded the whole downstairs when she was eighteen. Maybe, the fact that they were making such a monumental request meant they now saw her, at thirty years of age, as a responsible adult.

“If it’s too much to ask, just say so,” her mom went on. This was how her mom operated. On the rare occasion she did ask for a favor, her mother immediately started talking a person out of agreeing. “Your father and I can just wait until we find a buyer. It’s not a big deal.”

“I’ll do it,” Lyla said, not letting her mom walk back the request.

“You will?”

“Of course. If I can help make your and dad’s dreams come true any faster, my answer is yes.” In fact, her mother’s request was kind of a godsend. Lyla’s lease on her apartment in Bloomberg was finally up, and she was about to be homeless. She’d dragged her feet in locating a new place to live because she wasn’t sure if she wanted to stay in the town where she’d spent the last several years with her ex. Bloomberg was Joe’s town, and now that they had broken up, maybe Lyla wanted to break up with Bloomberg as well.

Also, signing a lease was a financial commitment, and her nationally famous opinion column was tanking these days. When she’d last spoken with Bob, her editor, his exact words had been: No one cares what Delilah has to say these days. Find something fresh or we’ll find a younger, wittier Delilah with more controversial opinions.

Lyla knew Bob was just that heartless. He’d have no problem finding a new voice for “Delilah’s Delusions,” even though Lyla was Delilah. She was just one blasé opinion away from losing the job that paid a majority of her bills.

Shaking away her worries about the future, Lyla’s mind filled with new concerns as she headed up her parents’ porch steps. What am I getting myself into? Packing up and selling this house was a big job that she didn’t have the time or the experience to do on her own. What if she messed up? What if no one put in an offer? What if . . . ?

A dog’s bark got her attention. All her senses suddenly went on alert. When she was growing up, the neighbor had a little Yorkshire terrier who was half devil-dog, half diary with four legs. When he wasn’t chasing Lyla on her bike, he was finding her on the front porch when she needed someone to talk to. There were a lot of secrets she had confided to Sonny during tear-filled moments. That little dog had taken those secrets to his grave, however, the last summer Lyla was in Echo Cove. God rest his tiny terrorizing, salty-tear-licking soul.

Lyla spun in a circle looking for a dog who might be lurking in the bushes, but all she saw was flowers and trees, vibrant with color after a mild spring that had transitioned into a typical Echo Cove summer. Hot, but also breezy, which meant sunburns snuck up on you like the possibility of that dog out there in the azalea bushes.

Turning her focus back to the house, Lyla noticed that the front porch was bare. No wreath on the door. No wooden rocking chairs and no welcome mat—Uh-oh. That’s where her parents had told her to look for the key to get inside the house. There was nothing there, though, not even an old flower pot. Pulling out her phone, she tapped out a text.

Lyla: Hey, Mom! Where’s the key to get in?

After waiting a long moment, she remembered her parents’ itinerary. Her parents were on a flight to Florida right now. They wouldn’t respond before she melted in this sweltering heat.

Surely, they’d placed the key somewhere, she thought, as her gaze ping-ponged along the porch railing. There was nothing. “Guess I’ll be breaking in,” she mumbled, descending the steps and heading around to the back fence.

Woof!

Lyla’s body tensed and prepared to run. Then she spotted the gray-and-brown ball of fluff, and for a moment, her heart burst with this unexpected joy. “Sonny?”

The little dog padded up to her and barked again, his tail wagging like a windshield wiper on high speed. Kneeling, she held out her hand for the little dog to sniff, her mind catching up to the present moment. Of course this wasn’t her neighbor’s little Yorkie. Sonny had tragically met his fate that last summer before Lyla had gone off to college. He’d gone out a hero, though, saving a teenage boy who was only one year younger than Lyla and who was now Echo Cove’s mayor. “You look just like him,” Lyla whispered as the dog sniffed her fingers and then backed away with another bark. He kept his eye on her as she returned to a standing position and continued through the back fence. When her back was turned, she half expected the little dog to pounce, but instead, he disappeared, no doubt realizing she wasn’t a threat.

Good, because fighting off a dog while breaking in to her parents’ home was a recipe for disaster. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d broken into this house. She’d been locked out her last summer here when she was supposed to be house-watching while her parents took their first vacation in ages. And then her father ate eel sushi rolls that had spoiled along about the same time Lyla accidentally spilled blue hair gel down the bathroom drain, clogging the pipes and flooding the downstairs. That last summer in Echo Cove had been one low, then lower low. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong had.

Lyla headed over to the kitchen window where the latch had broken the last time she’d forced her way into this house. Hopefully, her father never fixed it. Securing her fingers under the lip of the window, she grunted as she pushed the window up. It wasn’t as easy as she would have thought. She tried again and this time the window budged in an upward direction.

When it was three quarters of the way open, Lyla looked around for something to stand on. Nothing. Then she attempted to pull herself up. Not happening in this lifetime. Giving herself a running start, she ran and leapt toward the window’s opening. This was where her overactive imagination sometimes failed her. She wasn’t a flying ninja—far from it.

“Excuse me!” a tinny voice called out.

Lyla let go of the window and whirled to face an older woman who was standing just inside the fence.

The woman had long, white hair and light green eyes. She pointed a knobby finger in Lyla’s direction. “Neighborhood watch! You stop right there, missy! I want you to know I’ve called the po-lice and they’ll be here in a flat second.”

Lyla held up her hands. “This isn’t how it looks.”

“Looks like you’re breaking into my neighbor’s house. Just because it has a FOR SALE sign out front doesn’t mean it’s open for looters to go snooping and stealing.”

Lyla realized she knew this woman. “Ms. Hadley?” Ms. Hadley was her parents’ neighbor who’d been living next door since Lyla was born. She was the owner of the little Yorkie who Lyla had just been remembering. Ms. Hadley must have gotten a new dog to keep her company. “Hi, Ms. Hadley. It’s me, Lyla. This is my house. Or it was.”

Ms. Hadley slowly lowered her finger, but she didn’t look any less threatening. “Oh, no. Please tell me you’re not taking over the place.”

Nice to see you too. “No. I’m helping my parents sell, actually.”

Ms. Hadley looked skeptical.

“So you can just call off the police,” Lyla said, pronouncing that last word the correct way. “Everything’s fine.”

Ms. Hadley fluttered a hand on the air. “Oh, they aren’t coming anyway. They stopped responding to me a long time ago. Said I made too many baseless reports.”

Lyla never thought she’d miss this crotchety grouch of a woman, but she had. Everyone needed a crotchety grouch in their life to make them feel better about their own outlook.

“The key to the house is under the mat, you moron.”

Moron. Lovely. Anywhere beyond Echo Cove, Lyla was a household name. Granted, most people in the country didn’t know who the real person behind “Delilah’s Delusions” was, despite the opinion column being featured on Good Morning, America and mentioned in just about every notable magazine over the years. “Delilah’s Delusions” was even used as a satire in a Saturday Night Live episode once.

Across the country, Lyla was just the faceless wizard behind the curtain—the one who wrote the words that weren’t even her true opinions these days. Here in her hometown, though, the curtain was down. She wasn’t witty or thoughtful, controversial or anything that attracted national attention. Instead, she was that strange girl who only seemed to have one friend, an even stranger boy who was the preacher’s son. Lyla had been his accomplice for dozens of childish pranks that said preacher had used as the hook for many a Sunday sermon.

Ms. Hadley pointed at the rectangular black mat in front of Lyla’s parents’ back door. “Even an amateur crook would try the mat before busting through the window.”

Lyla followed the direction of where Ms. Hadley had pointed and sure enough, there was the welcome mat. “Thank you! Good to see you, Ms. Hadley!” She turned back to her neighbor, but the old woman was already back in her own yard.

Lyla lifted the mat and picked up the silver-toned key, grateful because she hadn’t wanted to get stuck in that kitchen window. She didn’t know anyone in Echo Cove anymore. She would have had to call the po-lice and convince them she belonged here when she herself wasn’t even sure that was true.

The door opened freely as she slid the key into the lock and turned. The smell inside the house hit her first. Lemon zest cleaner. Judging by the overwhelming scent, her mom must have used gallons to clean this place prior to leaving. There was also the pungent smell of fresh paint. The walls were bare and spotless. The granite countertops cleared. “Wow,” she uttered under her breath. The room was familiar, but also foreign. This place didn’t smell like her mother’s cooking or sound like her father’s favorite reruns on TV. In a short amount of time, the place that had always been Lyla’s home had changed.

Lyla wandered through the bare kitchen and peeked into the living room. It was full of boxes, but nothing else. No television. No couch. No reason to spend any amount of time anywhere other than inside her childhood bedroom.

A sense of dread bubbled up as she headed in that direction. Her mom said she’d left the room for Lyla to pack up, but what if she hadn’t? What if Lyla’s old room was also a hollowed-out soulless space?

Lyla held her breath as she stepped in front of her open bedroom door. A movie poster for Nicholas Sparks’s movie Message in a Bottle was still affixed with Scotch tape to the faux wood panels. Back then, Lyla had dreamed of being Nicholas Sparks. The idea of writing books that ripped people’s hearts out and handed them back to them in a gooey mess was all she thought about. Writing a book that anyone might read and love was the fuel behind scores of notebooks filled to the brim with handwritten stories.

The room was exactly the way Lyla had left it. It had been a few years since she’d come home. Instead of driving to Echo Cove, her parents had visited her in Bloomberg on weekends and holidays. Lyla’s ex, Joe, had thought that best. Joe hadn’t wanted to “waste” his vacation time traveling to a small nowhere town. That should have been the first red flag for their relationship.

Why did I stay so long with a man who would consider coming home with me a waste of time?

Deep down, she knew the answer. She’d stayed because she was afraid of never finding someone better. Someone who would love her, flaws and all. There was a time when she’d feared falling in love—because that would keep her from chasing and achieving her dreams. When her writing career took off, however, that fear shifted to never having real love. The kind in romantic comedies, where the guy held a radio and serenaded you outside your bedroom window. The kind in those Nicholas Sparks-esque love stories that she had wanted to write so badly.

With a sigh, she looked around her room and assessed the job ahead. The space was neat, but chock-full of stuff. She’d kept every album from school, every yearbook, every trophy, every memento—it was all here in boxes stacked on top of each other in her closet. She even had her old clothes, which might still fit. Well, maybe the socks.

The bed was still in the middle of the room. Her mom had gotten rid of all the furniture except for what was in Lyla’s room. Most grown women had their own furniture by this point. Lyla’s furniture, however, was back in Bloomberg, and Joe was sleeping on it. By now, he’d probably moved his collection of old T-shirts into the solid oak dresser she’d picked out. He’d paid for it, so he’d kept it—which meant Lyla would keep her twin-size bed that she’d grown up sleeping on. It beat the air mattress she’d used since the breakup.

Plopping onto her childhood bed, she released another long sigh. Then, without even thinking, she slid her hand along the underside of the mattress until she touched the hard spine of a book. A small squeal erupted as she pulled her old diary to her lap. The cover was decorated in dark blue sequins with three sparkly golden fireflies on its center. She didn’t open the diary immediately. Doing so almost felt like an invasion of her younger self’s privacy. She and the Lyla of old were strangers these days.

Holding her breath, she lifted the hard cover of the diary, spying the looping cursive handwriting that she had taken such pride in. Before she could even read the first line, the doorbell rang. Who would be visiting? Please don’t let it be Ms. Hadley again—or worse, the po-lice finally deciding to follow up on one of her neighbor’s calls.

She set the diary down and hurried to the front of the house. When she looked through the peephole, all she saw was a blurry image of a female she didn’t recognize. The woman was younger than Ms. Hadley, though, with reddish-brown hair.

Lyla opened the door just a crack and peeked out. “Yes?”

“Hi, Lyla!” The woman, who was about Lyla’s age, waved excitedly. There was something familiar about her unnatural level of enthusiasm.

Lyla didn’t open the door any wider. Hometown or not, she didn’t know this person. “Do I know you?”

“You don’t remember me?” A giggle tumbled off the woman’s lips. Something about the high-pitched sound erupting from the woman’s fuchsia-colored lips struck a chord.

“Wait. Allison Wilkerson? You were a cheerleader at our high school.”

“Ding-ding-ding!” The woman giggled again. “Good job. Hopefully that means the years have been kind and I look exactly like I did when we got our diplomas.”

There was an awkward silence when Lyla didn’t immediately agree. It wasn’t that the woman looked worse for wear. Just that Lyla was stumped as to why the school’s head cheerleader would be standing on her parents’ porch. “You look great.”

Allison’s smile brightened. “Thanks. You too. So can I come in?”

Lyla’s internal response was a hard no. All she really wanted to do was lie down and breathe for a moment. Mindless scrolling on her phone sounded like a good idea too, seeing that there was no TV inside the house. “Not to be rude, but why?”

A hint of nervousness played in Allison’s expression as the corners of her lips subtly twitched. “Well, your mom told me you were all alone here and that you’d need a friend once you arrived.”

Allison wanted to be Lyla’s friend? That certainly hadn’t been the case in high school. Lyla wasn’t even sure Allison had known who she was back then, though their graduating class had been less than a hundred people. “Umm . . .”

“I brought dinner.” Allison held up a casserole carrying case. “Made it myself.”

“For me?”

“Of course, it’s for you, silly. Well, I made it as a favor to your mom. I owe Mama Dune a lot.”

Mama Dune? What was happening right now?

Allison bopped back and forth, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “So can I come in?”

Lyla didn’t feel like socializing, but her stomach growled as she considered making an excuse to turn Allison away. “Sure. Come on in.”

“This house is so adorbs!” Allison’s voice rose an octave on the last word.

Lyla tried not to roll her eyes. She was probably going to have to stomach a lot of annoying verbiage tonight in exchange for a hot meal.

“If I didn’t already have my own place, I’d buy this place.” Allison walked through the house, seeming to know the place well. She set the casserole carrying bag on the countertop and looked around. “Bare bones in here, huh?”

Lyla nodded. “Most everything is packed. Somebody is coming to pick up the donations next week.”

“Mm.” Allison unzipped the casserole bag, revealing a rectangular glass dish. “Hope you like lasagna.”

Lyla’s spirits lifted. “That’s my favorite, actually.”

“Your mom told me.” Allison let out another high-pitched giggle.

“I’ve got paper plates and plasticware for us. Is that okay?”

“Sure. Hope you have cups too,” Allison said. “Otherwise we’ll be drinking straight from the bottle.”

Lyla turned back on her way to retrieve the plates. “Bottle?”

Something akin to mischief flashed in Allison’s eyes. “I brought wine from The Sippy Cup.”

The Sippy Cup was a popular place in town where you could purchase fine wines. At least as fine as Echo Cove could muster.

“You’re not sober, are you?” Allison suddenly looked concerned. “Because a woman in your condition really shouldn’t be.”

“My condition?” Lyla grabbed the plates and placed them on the counter beside Allison. Did Allison think she was pregnant? No, because if Lyla was pregnant, she certainly wouldn’t be drinking.

“The newly dumped condition,” Allison explained. “You’re single. All alone and back at your parents’ house.” She grimaced, an undeniable look of pity in her eyes.

Lyla’s lips parted. “I . . . Well, that’s not exactly painting the right picture. I’m not back at my parents’ home. I’m here because I’m helping them sell their house. And I’m getting my things.”

Allison held up a large spoon that she’d brought with her. She carved out a huge serving and expertly placed it on one of the paper plates. Then she did the same with the next plate. “I’ve been in your shoes. Two years ago, matter of fact.” She took a seat on one of the barstools and grabbed one of the plastic forks that Lyla had set on the counter. “I think that’s why your mom chose me to be your guardian angel while you’re in Echo Cove.”

Lyla took a seat on the second stool to keep from falling over. “From cheerleader to guardian angel,” she said sarcastically.

“Pom-poms to wings.” Allison spooned some of her lasagna into her mouth. “Mmm. Not to mention chef.” She gestured at Lyla’s plate. “Taste it already. That pasta is sure to heal whatever ails you.”

Lyla seriously doubted that. Sadly, Allison’s description of Lyla’s current “situation” wasn’t too far off. She was newly dumped and technically, yeah, she was back home with her tail between her legs.

“And if my lasagna doesn’t heal you,” Allison said, “the wine I brought will.”

The world felt too bright the next morning, and a small headache thrummed at Lyla’s temples. Had she really gotten drunk with her high school’s former head cheerleader last night? What kind of alternate universe had she landed in?

In high school, Lyla hadn’t seemed to be on Allison’s radar. But for the most part, Lyla was grateful to be invisible to the popular kids at Echo Cove High. And yet, now that they were grown, Allison seemed so approachable. Either Lyla was still under the influence of those bottles of red Cabernet from The Sippy Cup, or she’d actually enjoyed Allison’s company.

Weird.

Lyla lifted her head off the pillow and glanced around her bedroom for a moment. The only packing left was still stuffed into this room. This was going to take forever. Not to mention, Lyla had a copyediting job to do as well as an opinion article deadline looming over her head. She should get started right away. But first, coffee.

As Lyla stood, the diary on her nightstand caught her eye. She’d forgotten about finding it. The iridescent fireflies on the cover were made from sequins and glitter. She picked the little journal up, recalling the tiny thrill she’d gotten every time she’d opened it all those years ago. The air had been thick with anticipation that summer. For years, she’d been dreaming of going off to college. One of her biggest fears was getting stuck in Echo Cove like her mother. Her mom had fallen in love with Lyla’s dad instead of chasing dreams and had anchored herself to this town. That was why their curr. . .