Now That I Know You by Heart

A young widow embraces a life-changing new start on San Juan Island in a joyful and redemptive novel about closure, self-discovery, chosen family, and the courage it takes to live truthfully.

Newly widowed Shelby Wright has left the Portland suburbs for a new life on Washington’s San Juan Island to fulfill her late husband’s dying wish. Running the shuttered Captain Merrick Inn, where they’d honeymooned twenty years before, is also a chance for Shelby to prove she can go it solo. Miles from home and her young adult son, Shelby is ready to finally acknowledge to herself that she is gay. But becoming the person she’s hidden away for so long isn’t going to be easy.

As Shelby renovates and rebrands the inn, she meets charismatic winemaker Holly Caster. Their fast connection challenges Shelby to confront her emerging identity and lingering attachment not only to her husband, whom she loved, but to the best friend she left behind. When Shelby is welcomed by a supportive group of local queer women dubbed “the San Juan Sisters,” she’s on her way to making a professional venture—and a long-awaited personal quest—come true.

Both she and the inn may be in need of a little TLC, but Shelby is about to find love and purpose in the most unexpected places.

Author Biography

Amy Hagstrom is the author of The Wild Between Us and Smoke Season. She is a writer and editor with two decades of experience in the travel and outdoor industry. Amy has been recognized as an O Magazine Insider and was a columnist and feature writer at Travel Oregon, US News & World Report, and HuffPost. She holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Whitworth University. A lifelong outdoors enthusiast, she served as a volunteer EMT with her local county search and rescue unit before launching her travel writing career.

After raising three children in the Pacific Northwest, Amy traded the Cascade, Siskiyou, and Sierra Nevada Mountain ranges for the Berkshires, making her home in western Massachusetts with her wife. Visit her at https://amyhagstrom.com.