Love Letters #28

When Yvonne Ruddell escapes her drifting, irresponsible father to build a new life, she meets Vince Preston, an ambitious dreamer planning to open his own sandwich shop—and she falls hard for him. Just as Vince's business dreams come true and he proposes, her father reappears, seemingly reformed and asking for a second chance, and Yvonne brings him into the restaurant without being honest with Vince about his troubled past. What unfolds tests whether Yvonne's loyalty to her father and her silence about him will destroy the future she's fought so hard to create.

Ava Vernon has spent years hiding a secret from everyone around her—her parents, Mr. Vernon and Mrs. Vernon, perform in a circus sideshow, and she's terrified of the shame that discovery would bring. When she falls for Lonnie Shaw at a nightclub where she works, his love feels like a chance at a normal life, but her fear of his judgment sends her running back to the circus. What Ava doesn't expect is that Lonnie will follow her, and that her parents' own quiet dignity might teach her something about where true pride really belongs.

Gloria Hallard thought the spark had faded from her engagement to Rod Walker, so when the charming Clark Briston came into her life, she convinced herself it was true love—and broke her engagement to pursue him. But Gloria's reckless choice doesn't just hurt Rod; it threatens her friendship with Nan Jeffers, who had her own reasons for caring about Clark. As Gloria discovers what Clark truly values, she's forced to reckon with what she threw away in her search for thrilling kisses.

A young woman deeply in love with Todd Rathburn finds herself paralyzed by fear when he proposes marriage—terrified that their devotion will crumble like so many others she reads about in the headlines. When a visit to her old friend Eve Forester, whose marriage has just fallen apart, seems to confirm her darkest worries, she pushes Todd away rather than risk heartbreak. But as time passes and circumstances shift in unexpected ways, Amelia begins to question whether her terror was truly justified, or if she's thrown away something precious based on nothing but dread.