Windless Summer: A Novel

Synopsis: A father’s love. A shattering secret. A summer that will change lives forever.


In the town of Rocket, Washington—a summer playground for windsurfers and tourists—a windless summer ignites fear as businesses and residents move away. Rocket’s motel, run by a lonely widower named Tom Jemmet, is hard hit. And Tom has demons of his own: memories of a beautiful wife that still haunt him, and a troubled young daughter whose retreat into a silent world confounds her father and sparks whispers in town.

Swirling around Tom are lives much like his own, townspeople yearning for wind but also for hope, even love. Charlene, a mail clerk, helps care for Tom’s daughter while a secret gnaws at her heart…Lauren, the town vet, has fallen for Tom, who barely notices…and newspaper editor Hap is hatching a foolish plan to save his town.

That’s when a miracle—or something like it—strikes Tom’s run-down motel. Guests who stay in Room 6 begin experiencing sudden acts of fate, both terrible and great. But while tourists descend on Rocket and the the town shows new signs of life, the truth about Tom’s motel and the death of his wife—as well as the secret hopes and fears of everyone around him—are exposed in ways that are both surprising and inevitable….