Michael Kendrick sees a portrait of a woman in the Dragonfly Gallery window, but the door is locked, and there is a for lease sign on the door. The inside of the gallery is dark and empty. Michael searches to find the woman in the portrait, Cadence Anderson, and when he finds her, he begins to fall deeply in love.

Cadence has just left her violent husband, Dan, and has moved into her mother’s cottage in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, with her eight-year-old daughter, Madelyn. After her mother dies, she takes over her artist retreats. Cadence has loved and lost. After fleeing from her husband, she doesn’t want to trust again.

Michael believes everyone in his life will leave him, and he doesn’t want to fall in love again—until he meets Cadence. He grew up in foster homes where he was often abused and never experienced the love of a family. But his feelings for Cadence grow. She feels like home to him. After a journal is found, Michael must make a decision that will alter the course of their lives. For Michael and Cadence, love is a light that carries them through the darkest of times.

If you like Nicholas Sparks's Safe Haven and Colleen Hoover's This Ends With Us, you'll be sure to like Tiffany Joans's The Journal.