Meet Tommy and Nora from A Home For Her Heart

Some people learn early how to stay ready to leave.

Nora Santos is one of them.

She runs the marine supply shop in Seacliff Shores, lives aboard a boat she rescued from a mud berth, and can spot trouble in a hull before most people have finished asking the question. Salt, rope, waterlines, weak seals, hidden rot, these are things she understands.

Trust is harder.

Nora knows where the water gathers. She knows what salt gets into. She also knows exactly where the nearest exit is in any room she walks into.

Then there is Tommy Chen.

If you have been in Seacliff Shores from the beginning, you may remember him from Luke’s surf rescue training in A Harbor For Her Heart. Tommy was the one with the quick smile, the easy jokes, and more going on beneath the surface than he ever let anyone see.

Now he is learning a trade as an apprentice builder. He turns up early, works hard, and keeps the crew laughing during coffee breaks. Being useful comes naturally to him. Believing he is wanted without earning his place does not.

When Ocean View Chapel decides to build a sailing shed for the town’s young people, Nora and Tommy end up working side by side for eleven weeks.

The project is meant to give teenagers a safe place by the water, somewhere their hands are needed and their presence matters. But as timber is cut, plans change, and the little shed begins to take shape, something tender starts building between Nora and Tommy too.

Neither of them planned for it.

Both know how to keep moving.

Staying is the part that frightens them.

Slowly, they find themselves facing the question at the heart of their story:

Can a guarded heart learn to stay when love is offered freely?

A Home For Her Heart is a clean Christian romance about a guarded woman, a wounded funny man, and a town that shows up with casseroles, work gloves, and no agenda.

It is a story about belonging, trust, healing, and the quiet, patient way God builds us a place to stay, not in one grand moment, but one faithful day at a time.

If you have loved your visits to Seacliff Shores, the Seabean Café, Ocean View Chapel, the boats in the harbor, and familiar faces like Claire, Elliot, Summer, Joel, Luke, and Emily, you will feel right at home here.

And if this is your very first walk down to the water, you are welcome too.

A Home For Her Heart is coming soon. I cannot wait for you to meet Tommy and Nora properly.

While you wait, step into the town for free

If you would like to feel the rhythm of Seacliff Shores before the new book arrives, I have a gift for you.

The Heart of Seacliff Shores is my free little welcome story.  It’s a  glimpse of the town, a few of the people who gather there, and the salt and warm bread feeling of a place where no one has to stand alone in the dark.

It is the perfect way to settle in before Tommy and Nora’s story begins.

Download your free story, The Heart of Seacliff Shores 

Come and find your seat by the water. I’ll keep the light on at the Seabean.

With love,

 Elizabeth Marie