She had the marriage. The house. The plan. Then her husband came home and blew it all apart.

The $2.99 book that started a 12-book series readers say they've reread "three and four times over."

Julie Pike had the kind of life you could set a clock by. Twenty-one years of marriage. Two grown daughters. A plan for the future she and her husband had been building since their twenties.

Then one evening, he sat down across from her at the kitchen table and told her the truth. There was another woman. In Boston. And a six-month-old son Julie never knew existed.

In a single conversation, the life she'd spent two decades building crumbled.

What Julie did next is why more than 800,000 readers have fallen in love with this story.

She packed up what was left of her pride and bought a weathered little cottage on a small island in the South Carolina Lowcountry — the kind of place where the salt air sticks to your skin and strangers wave from their front porches.

But Seagrove had more waiting for her than a fresh coat of paint. An estranged sister she hasn't spoken to in years. A complicated mother. And a quiet handyman named Dawson, who was only supposed to fix the porch…

If you've ever had to start over, this story is for you.

The Beach House is a story about what happens after everything falls apart — the messy, funny, hopeful business of rebuilding a life at 43. It's perfect for readers who love:

• Starting-over stories with real heart
• Small-town Southern settings you can almost smell the salt air in
• Complicated mothers, sisters, and second chances
• Slow-burn clean romance — "just kisses," nothing you'd hide from your book club
• A 12-book series to binge when you're hooked

It's the book that built the town of Seagrove — and once you've visited, you'll want to stay.