Brimming with warmth and wit, Susan Duncan's first novel is a delicious tale of friendship and love, and the search for a place to call home...

Ettie Brookbank is the heart and soul of Cook's Basin, a sleepy offshore community comprising a cluster of dazzling blue bays. But for all the idyllic surroundings, Ettie can't help wondering where her dreams have disappeared to.

Until fate offers her a lifeline - in the shape of a lopsided little café on the water's edge.

When Bertie, its cantankerous septuagenarian owner, offers her ‘the Briny’ for a knockdown price, it's an opportunity too good to miss. But it's a mammoth task - and she'll need a partner.

Enter Kate Jackson, the enigmatic new resident of the haunted house on Oyster Bay. Kate is also clearly at a crossroads - running from a life in the city that has left her lonely and lost.

Could a ramshackle cafe and its endearingly eccentric customers deliver the new start both women so desperately crave?