If you’re missing summer already, as I am, Alison Hammer’s debut women’s fiction book, You and Me and Us, will let you live at the beach for a little while longer. This sweet story of a workaholic mom, a teen with issues, and the man who holds their family together–at least for awhile–will break your heart and put it back together by the end. Have a box of tissues ready!

This story, told with humor and compassion, is about Alexis Gold, a workaholic mom, who puts her business above everything else, including family. For years, she and her teenage daughter CeCe have depended on Tommy, CeCe’s dad and Alexis’s partner, to parent CeCe, which he does well. But he does everything well. Tommy is the rock CeCe and Alexis depend on to interpret their feelings and referee their disputes. He’s the peacemaker who holds their family together. Until his diagnosis with terminal cancer changes everything.

The only thing Tommy asks of Alexis is to spend his last summer in Destin, Florida, where they lived when they were twelve-year-old kids. Despite misgivings about leaving home for Destin, Alexis leaves her business in her partner’s hands and drives Tommy and CeCe to their beach house.

Problems inevitably arise as they wait for Tommy to pass away. Two of them are that Tommy’s ex lives nearby and CeCe doesn’t trust her mom, especially when CeCe falls for a local boy. Alexis and CeCe have to learn to depend less on Tommy and more on each other over the course of this heartbreaking but beautiful summer where love and forgiveness triumph in their lives.

Ultimately this is a love story, a coming of age story and a story of redemption and living life with no regrets. I laughed and cried through it all, especially the ending! If you haven’t read it yet, you should. You can find You and Me and Us here or, better yet, support your local bookseller. By the way, Alison has a new book coming out next year called Little Pieces of Me. Click the title to preorder from Amazon! Can’t wait to read it!!!