The Charmed Friends of Trove Isle

by Annie Rains

Genres: Women's Fiction

Synopsis

In a grown-up twist on The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, USA Today bestselling author Annie Rains pens a powerful, uplifting story of female friendship and resilience in a small Southern town, as former childhood friends overcome grief and begin to take new chances in their lives… with the help of a long-lost gift they were meant to share. Perfect for readers ofKaren Hawkins’ The Book Charmer or Heather Webber’s Midnight at the Blackbird Café.

Ten years after she left her hometown of Trove Isle, NC, Melody Palmer is back to receive an unexpected inheritance—her great aunt’s thrift store, Hidden Treasures. There, in a glass case beneath the register, Melody spies the long-lost charm bracelet she shared with her high school friends, Liz and Bri, and her younger sister, Alyssa. After a devastating prom night accident, it disappeared, and the girls’ friendship evaporated with it. Slipping the bracelet on her arm for safekeeping, Melody soon finds herself crossing paths with her former friends once more.

While Melody fled, Liz has stayed in Trove Isle, helping with her parents’ business instead of pursuing her photography goals. Guilt still weighs on her after that fateful night when they lost Alyssa. For Bri, the consequences were even more stark. After spiraling into self-destruction, Bri served four years in a women’s state prison and is about to be released—but can Trove Isle ever feel like home again?

Yet despite everything that’s changed, the promise that the bracelet once held—of adventures, achievements, love, and lifelong friendship—hasn’t quite faded. And together, they might yet find a way to reconcile their pasts and futures, one charm at a time . . .

Release date: May 21, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

Melody Palmer pulled up to the address in her GPS and parked along the curb. The sign above the awning read HIDDEN TREASURES in large golden block letters. The word treasure brought visions of jewelry or fancy clothing to mind. It conjured images of special knickknacks or mementos that one might find in a fancy gift shop, which was what Melody had assumed she’d inherited. This store and its sign, however, reminded her of a pawn shop.

She swallowed past a tight throat and reached for a bottled water in the center console, taking several long sips. She was meeting with a lawyer here in just a few minutes to sign the papers and make this place hers.

When Mr. Lyme had called last week to inform her that—surprise!—she was the new owner of a store that her Great-aunt Jo had willed to her in Trove Isle, North Carolina, Melody’s first remark had been, “I thought someone had to die to will you something.”

After a long pause, the lawyer had cleared his throat and responded in a thick southern accent, “My condolences, Miss Palmer.”

So Great-aunt Jo was dead. The realization that her father’s aunt was gone still knocked the breath out of Melody when she thought about it. She hadn’t seen Jo in nine years, but the fact that she never would again stung. After Melody’s mother had died when Melody was eleven, Jo had picked up the slack on the things that moms did, like teaching Melody and her sister Alyssa, who was one year younger, about boys and puberty, having at-home spa days that were unconventional to say the least, and making butterscotch tea when they’d had a bad day.

When Melody had left her small ocean isle town at eighteen, she’d left everyone behind, including Jo.

Pushing her car door open, Melody stepped out onto the sidewalk of Seagull Street. She’d been impressed when she’d heard the address. This was prime realty in the little isle town. Unlike the other beachfront towns nearby, Trove Isle wasn’t a touristy hot spot. It was too small to accommodate many out-of-towners, and most people had never heard of Trove. For those who lived here though, Seagull Street was the place to be. It had everything a town might need, and maybe a little of what it didn’t need.

Melody looked at the storefront again. Jo hadn’t owned this place before Melody left town. Instead, Melody’s great-aunt had worked odd jobs, scraping money together to barely make ends meet. When Melody had heard Jo left her a store, she’d assumed her great-aunt had finally found success. Melody had envisioned a nice storefront with good business.

That’s not what this was. Melody should have known better. Jo was what one might call a hoarder. There was an untold story in everything that Jo was drawn to—an unlived life. Melody used to disappear into her aunt’s closet for hours, opening boxes, and pulling things out to try on.

“Those shoes will lead you to one of your very best friends,” Jo once said when Melody had tried on a pair of shiny black ballerina flats. Melody had been twelve. The very next day, she’d gone to school, wearing her shoes that Jo had salvaged from some unknown place, and she’d sat down beside the new girl, Brianna Johnson—Bri—who soon became one of Melody’s closest friends. Well, up until the accident.

Jo had been right. She was always right about things like that.

Melody glanced in each direction up the sidewalk before walking to the store’s window and pressing her hands against the cold glass to peer inside. There was wall-to-wall clutter. Clothes, toys, books, handheld appliances, everything one could possibly want—to get rid of.

Along one wall Melody spotted a fluorescent sign that read STUFF A BEACH BAG FOR $1.

Is this a thrift store?

“Miss Palmer?” a deep voice asked.

Melody jumped back from the window and whirled to face a balding man with dark brown skin and a neatly trimmed silver beard. “Mr. Lyme?”

He held out his hand for her to shake. “Nice to see you again, Melody. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”

Melody slipped her hand into his, finding his grasp firm and warm. She didn’t exactly recognize him though.

“I think the last time I saw you, you might have been ready to graduate high school,” he said in a friendly manner.

She stiffened at the reminder of her senior year. It was supposed to be the launching pad for the rest of her life, and it had been. It just hadn’t launched her where she’d expected to go. Back then she’d been eager to travel, yes, but she’d never intended to forget her roots. She was feeling claustrophobic by her tiny hometown and wanted to go and do and see all that the world had to offer. It was as if the world was her oyster and she was destined to find her pearl. By the time she’d ended up leaving though, it hadn’t been in the spirit of adventure, but more of a desperation for escape. Now here she was, back in the little town that had once felt like her prison.

Melody avoided the lawyer’s gaze, pretending to observe the storefront again. It had brick facing, and it was painted a creamy white color, chipped in a way that made it look both old and quaint—unlike that blaring sign above their heads. “Thank you for meeting me.”

“Of course, of course.” He took a pair of keys from his blazer’s pocket and jingled them in front of her with a wide grin. “Let me show you Jo’s pride and joy.” He opened the shop door and gestured for her to go in ahead of him. The aroma was what hit Melody first. Did dust have a smell? The air was stale, reminiscent of a closet that had been closed for too long, its shelves lined with moth balls and bricks of cedar meant to offset the musty scent.

Melody coughed once and then another time, finally deciding to breathe more shallowly while she was in the confines of this space.

“You okay?” Mr. Lyme asked, following behind her. “Jo has been gone a couple weeks now and no one has been in here to care for this place. This store meant everything to Jo,” he said. “Every time I stopped in to see her, she had an ear-to-ear grin. Then again, that was Jo. Always spreading cheer wherever she went.”

Melody turned to the lawyer, finding his kind words about her great-aunt interesting. “You and Jo were good friends?”

Mr. Lyme looked down for a moment, which Melody also found intriguing.

Oh. Apparently, he and Great-aunt Jo were more than good friends. That shouldn’t have made Melody sad, but it did. She didn’t know her great-aunt anymore. She hadn’t known about this store or the man Jo had been involved with. She hadn’t even known Jo was gone until two weeks after the fact.

Melody’s father had been calling and she’d been ignoring him. Was this what he’d been trying to tell her? If she had taken the time to call him back, perhaps she would have known. Turning, Melody let her gaze roam over the items on the shelves. There were knickknacks, costume jewelry, racks of shoes, books, clothing. “Where did all this stuff come from?” she asked.

“Donations mostly. Jo was a bit of a dumpster diver too,” Mr. Lyme admitted. “She’d wake up before the birds were even singing and go out looking for her treasures.”

Melody didn’t dare ask how he knew her great-aunt’s early morning habits. “Dumpster diving?”

He looked a little embarrassed on Jo’s behalf. “Going through other people’s trash. One man’s junk is another woman’s treasure. That’s what Jo loved to say,” he said with a deep belly laugh.

Melody could feel her expression tighten. She couldn’t help it. Between the smells and the idea that some of this stuff had come from the bottom of a dumpster, her senses were misfiring.

“I know it’s probably not your dream to own a place like this,” Mr. Lyme went on, “but breathing life into lost things was Jo’s passion.”

Melody felt the tickle of another cough threatening in the back of her throat. “I don’t understand. Why did Jo leave Hidden Treasures to me? Surely there were other more deserving people in Jo’s life.”

Mr. Lyme looked around. He wasn’t grimacing. Instead, his distant gaze appeared to be more of a walk down memory lane. “As you know, she didn’t have any living kids and was never married. Jo knew your father wouldn’t appreciate this place. That’s why she left Hidden Treasures to you.”

Melody wished she could say she felt appreciative. Right now, she was more overwhelmed with guilt and sadness. And disappointment. This store wasn’t at all what she’d imagined, and it certainly didn’t appear to be the answer to her prayers. She’d been hoping any inheritance would serve as a down payment for her own place in Charlotte, so that she could finally lay down roots somewhere. “I don’t live in Trove Isle anymore and I don’t plan to ever again,” she told the lawyer honestly.

“Oh, Jo knew that. She was a special woman, your great-aunt. She didn’t make this choice lightly.” He stepped up to a glass counter full of costume jewelry and laid his leather briefcase down. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Melody.” He pulled out a stack of paperwork and handed Melody a pen. “Just need your signature on a few lines to make this official.”

Melody’s breaths began to quicken. She rubbed a hand behind her neck. “What if I don’t sign the papers?” she asked, her chest feeling tight as a slow panic wrapped around her. This store suddenly seemed like a lot more responsibility and work than she’d bargained for. Maybe she didn’t want it after all. How much money could she even get from selling a place as run-down as this?

Mr. Lyme’s smile wobbled. “Why wouldn’t you sign?”

Heat torched her cheeks. “Well, I, um, I don’t know if there are expenses attached to this property. Will I owe money on it? I don’t have the means to pay any outstanding bills.” For many years after leaving the isle, Melody had barely been able to pay her own bills. But now she was doing well for herself. She lived in a modest one-bedroom apartment in Charlotte, paid her rent on time, and could afford to get her hair cut at a place that cost way too much. A cut was a cut, but her hair had never looked so stylish. It was worth every penny.

Melody wished she had more to her name, but she liked at least having a little more than enough, and she never wanted to find herself just scraping by again. Especially not over a musty thrift store that she didn’t even want—or deserve.

Mr. Lyme gave her a reassuring smile. “Jo owned this place free and clear. You’d be inheriting the shop and everything inside. You would need to cover the utilities and the annual taxes, of course, but that’s it.” He waved the pen in front of Melody again as he waited for her to move.

Finally, she took the pen, her hand slightly shaking, and she started signing until she got to the bottom of the stack. She didn’t give herself time to second-guess what she was getting herself into. She owed Jo at least this much.

“All right then. You are the new owner of Hidden Treasures Thrift Store,” Mr. Lyme said. “I know Jo would be relieved that this place is in your capable hands. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I can’t wait to see what you do with this place.”

Do with the place? Other than sell it?

Melody cleared her throat, feeling another tickle that threatened to turn into a cough. “Thank you, Mr. Lyme.”

“You’re welcome. I’ve been waiting on you to return home, per Jo’s wishes. She didn’t want a funeral. Instead, she planned a celebration of life for herself.”

“Oh.” Some part of Melody had thought she’d missed Jo’s funeral. “When is the celebration?”

“This Friday night. It was Jo’s final wish that you’d attend.”

Melody really didn’t want to be thrown into a social event with the entire town. She was just hoping to get in and out and see as few people as she could get away with. But she couldn’t deny her great-aunt’s dying request. Jo had meant more to her than a distant relative. Once upon a time, Jo was as close as a mother to Melody. “Of course, I’ll try to attend.” Try being the operative word. If she could come up with a decent excuse not to, she’d choose that route. Saying goodbye was a personal thing. Melody didn’t need to do it with a group of people whom she hadn’t seen in ages. Or worse, strangers.

“Good.” Mr. Lyme seemed to exhale as if he’d been worried that she’d refuse. “It’s going to be at Sunrise Park.”

“The park?” That was an odd place to hold a celebration of life.

“Right on the water,” Mr. Lyme confirmed as if the detail made perfect sense. “I’ll see you there,” he said as he walked back to the door.

Melody followed him. Once he was gone, she turned and inspected the somewhat claustrophobic space, all her hopes crashing down around her. What was she going to do with a thrift store? It wasn’t even the high-end kind. This place was messy, unorganized, and quite possibly a safety hazard.

Melody walked the aisles, tried not to breathe, and avoided touching anything. Finally, she ended up at the glass case where the register sat. She peered down at a display of costume jewelry. Some of it was surprisingly kind of fun. In the far corner was a handwritten sign in Jo’s looping penmanship: NOT FOR PURCHASE. That was odd. Why display something in a secondhand store that wasn’t available to buy?

She inspected the items more closely. There was a crystal frame with a baby picture inside. Melody didn’t immediately recognize the baby, but she guessed it might have been Jo’s son who’d passed away when he was less than a year old. Next was a pink cameo broach that Melody vaguely recalled Jo wearing to special events. It clashed with her favorite lime-green pantsuit. The last item made Melody suck in a startled breath, forgetting momentarily that she was trying not to breathe in too deeply.

There, on a plastic jewelry display, was a charm bracelet that looked impossibly familiar. The piece was a mixture of rose, yellow, and white gold, braided together loosely like the one she and her friends had once shared. Except the bracelet she remembered only held one heart-shaped friendship charm. This one held several charms.

Melody blinked the sting from her eyes. There was no way that this was the same bracelet Alyssa had gifted their little quartet of friends right before high school graduation. Once upon a prom night, that charm bracelet was lost in a car accident—along with so much more.

Melody turned the key that poked out of the case’s lock and slid the glass door open. Then she reached for the jewelry, picked it up, and inspected the dangling charms. A house, a car, a muffin, a tiny camera, and . . . a friendship charm.

The breath whooshed out of her so hard that she had to brace her hands on the glass case to keep from sinking to the floor. The charm was dented on the top left bend of the heart. A defect that identified this charm as the very one that Melody and her friends had all shared. But this wasn’t possible. This bracelet was lost in the car accident that had killed Alyssa, who’d been wearing it that horrible night. No one had ever seen the piece of jewelry again. How had it gotten here?

Melody blinked the bracelet into focus, her breaths coming out fast and shallow. The idea was that they’d take turns wearing the bracelet. When it was their turn, they had to do something amazing. Something that scared them. That made their heart race.

“In a good way,” Alyssa had said with that wide, perfect Broadway smile that Melody missed every day. “That’s how we’ll know we’re alive and not just zombies like our parents and a few teachers who shall not be named,” she’d said dramatically.

Melody and Alyssa’s father had led the pack of so-called zombies, ever since their mother died. Principal Blevins was also suspect, barely mustering a smile most days despite Bri’s best attempts to make him crack one.

The charm bracelet had belonged to Jo first. That was where Alyssa had gotten it. Had the piece of jewelry somehow returned to Jo and she’d kept it safe? Jo always had a talent for finding lost things and putting them right back where they belonged. Just like that time she’d found Melody’s favorite doll that she’d lost after their picnic in Sunrise Park. Melody’s mom had given her that doll, and Melody had been distraught, crying herself to sleep night upon night. Then one morning Melody had woken up with the doll in her arms.

“Where did you find it?” Melody had asked Jo as she hurried down to her great-aunt’s sewing room, which was really a room full of old things. Lost things. Found things. Treasures, according to Jo.

“I found it on the Isle of Lost Things,” Jo had said, all wide-eyed and full of dramatic flair, which was Jo’s style. Alyssa had been a lot like her.

The Isle of Lost Things was as real to Melody back then as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, and the idea that her mother was sitting on a cloud in heaven with angel wings, looking down on her.

Melody didn’t believe in such things anymore. So where had this bracelet been all this time? There were so many unknowns that would probably never find answers now that Jo was gone.

Melody swallowed, her throat the consistency of sandpaper. She thought about flinging the bracelet back into the case, but this wasn’t something to keep on display. It felt private, off-limits. So much so that Melody hadn’t even allowed herself to look on these memories for the last nine years. Yet here they were, threatening to suffocate her. Her next impulse was to walk out of this store, get back inside her car, and drive over the bridge and away from the tiny town of Trove Isle. She’d left all this pain behind once. She could do it again.

Not knowing what else to do with the bracelet, she slid it onto her wrist for safe keeping. As she looked down at it, unshed tears burning her eyes and blurring her vision, the home charm seemed to catch the light. It reflected so brightly that she had to blink. When she did, one of those tears finally fell free.

No. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to be home in Trove Isle. Or to be the owner of a store full of stuff retrieved from the bottom of a dumpster. If the Isle of Lost Things was in fact a real place, she was standing in the middle of it. And maybe that was the reason Jo had brought her here. Maybe she was the most lost thing of all. And if that was the case, she didn’t want to be found.

Subject: Deep Thoughts by Bri

Liz,

I’ve been reading a lot of poetry in the prison library lately. Have I mentioned that? I’m not sure why, but reading a poem gives me a sense of accomplishment, you know? I’m not one of those people who finishes books. Even the ones I like. But I can read dozens of poems in one sitting. I have the beginning, the middle, and the end all in a matter of minutes.

I’m in a mood today. My daughter is on the other side of the country for the immediate future, and even though I’m not allowed to see Ally as often as I’d like, I miss her more just knowing she’s so far away. It’s good for her to spend time with her dad in California. She needs that. The old Bri never would have admitted it, but it’s true.

It’s amazing how four years can change a person. Honestly, I know this sounds flippant, but in some ways, prison has been a bit like high school. There are cliques and rules, mean girls and meaner ones, and it feels like you want to scream at these people who seem to be running your life. But you can’t. And, in this analogy, I’m in the last leg of my senior year, which was great in real life—until it wasn’t. So, as I prepare to blow this joint, honestly, I’m a little scared. Okay, I’m freaking out. Because I can see a light at the end of this tunnel, and last time that happened, my whole world got body-slammed against an oak tree.

I know I’ve always been the tough one. At least that’s what I’ve projected to the world around me. You want to know the truth, though? You’re the toughest one of us all. While Melody skipped town and I got hooked on pain meds to deal with all my crap, you stayed. You were clean and sober, and you have been my steadfast friend through it all. So, thanks for that. I owe you.

B

Liz Dawson blew out a breath and tried not to panic. Her younger sister Rose was only a couple of minutes late. Sixteen was too young to have a driver’s license, in Liz’s opinion. Too young to have a car. Why did their parents agree to let Rose have one, especially before deciding to leave the country?

The bell on the bakery’s door chimed. The Bitery closed at six in the evening, but Liz hadn’t locked up because she was waiting for her sister. The story of Liz’s life, starting with when she was twelve years old and her parents had sat her down to tell her they were pregnant. Since that time, Liz had been waiting for Rose in some form or fashion.

“Hey, thought I saw you in here,” Danette Rhodes said. Danette owned The Book Whore next door. She was pushing ninety years old, walked with a cane, and shook like a bobble-head doll when she spoke. “Saw you didn’t park your bicycle out front today. Need a ride, Lizzie?”

Liz smiled as she weighed the risks of that offer. Danette had less business driving on the streets of Trove Isle than Rose did. “No, thank you. My sister is actually supposed to be driving us home today.” Supposed to being the key words.

Danette frowned, which only made the deep lines of her face contort and twist like unruly rivers on a desperate search for their ocean. Liz understood that search. Her entire adult life she’d been twisting and curving on her path, looking for something. Her path seemed to be one big loop though, keeping her in the familiar. In safe territory. At least it had felt safe until her parents had dropped everything to spend the summer in Ecuador where Liz’s maternal grandmother, Mami, lived.

Mami had what doctors called a transient ischemic attack. In layman’s terms, a ministroke. That had necessitated her parents leaving the country three weeks ago to visit a place Liz had never known her parents to go. Liz’s grandmother had come to the states in her twenties and she’d had Liz’s mother here in Trove. Liz had grown up with her mom always wishing out loud to return to her mother’s homeland, especially after Mami had moved back, but between family and running her own business, there’d never been time.

It wasn’t exactly the perfect time now, either. Not with Rose still in school. But illness didn’t make appointments. Inconvenient or not, Liz’s parents had left Rose in Liz’s care. Liz was an adult after all. And Rose could take care of herself—in theory.

Her mom had also left the bakery under Liz’s care. It was a huge responsibility and a lot of pressure that Liz wasn’t sure she could shoulder. Not that she had a choice in the matter. So here she was, babysitting a teenager and tending a bakery, when all she really wanted to do was disappear behind the lens of her Canon and spend her evenings editing her photographs.

“Is Rosie old enough to drive?” Danette asked.

“According to the law,” Liz said in as cheerful a voice as she could muster. Liz, on the other hand, had her doubts about a sixteen-year-old hormone-ravaged teen girl operating a motor vehicle.

A horn beep-beeped beyond Danette.

Liz blinked the bright-red car into focus. Expelling a breath, because yes, she’d been slightly worried that Rose was upside down in a ditch somewhere, she glanced at her watch with a touch of annoyance. Fifteen minutes late. She guessed she should be grateful because, by teenager standards, that was practically early.

“Looks like your ride is here,” Danette said, her head wobbling with each word. “I’ll see you tomorrow, hon. Stop in The Book Whore if you have time. I’m having a sale.” Danette liked to work in her store name as often as she could. For shock effect, Liz suspected.

“I will. Goodnight, Danette.”

“Night, Lizzie.”

The horn honked again. With a sigh that bordered on a growl, Liz collected her purse from be. . .