Our Place on the Island by Erika Montgomery

 In Our Place on the Island by Erika Montgomery coming out in June, Mickey Campbell has a big secret: her Baltimore restaurant Piquant is in serious financial trouble, and she is keeping it under wraps from her partner and fellow chef Wes Isaac. Mickey thought she could handle the business side of owning a restaurant but that is proving to be untrue as overdue invoices are piling up on her desk. A couple of vendors have already stopped delivery, and Wes wonders why.

A phone call from her mother Hedy prompts her to come to the family home in Martha’s Vineyard, the Beech House. The home has been in the family for generations but unbeknownst to Mickey, her widowed grandmother is going to sell the home as she begins a new life with a new husband. Mickey barely has any time to process these changes as the wedding is in a few days.

With her restaurant in the red, this is not the best time to leave it behind to head to Martha’s Vineyard, but Mickey will do about anything for her grandmother Cora. Both Mickey and her mother are uncomfortable with the wedding plans as they lost their grandfather and father only three years ago.

As the story plays out on a 1999 timeline, chapters are interwoven with a look at Cora and her husband Harry as they start their married life in the Beech House in 1948. Turns out Cora’s fiancé is Max Dempsey, the carpenter who remodeled Cora’s kitchen back then. Both felt flickers of infatuation during the renovation, but how far did they take it?  Even neighbors noticed the amount of time Max was spending at the house when Harry was away on business back in the early days of their marriage, and the current gossip in town is that Cora is marrying “the one who got away,” which requires an explanation to both Mickey and her mother.

How will Mickey and Hedy be able to cope with this remarriage especially now with the news of a possible scandal? What will Mickey and Wes do about their restaurant? What chance is there to keep the Beech House in the family?

A native New Englander, Erika Montgomery currently lives with her family in the Mid-Atlantic. Her debut novel A Summer to Remember was published in 2021. In addition to penning books, she teaches creative writing, collects sea glass, and watches old movies.