Cece Downing Starts Over

A witty, heartfelt novel about a young woman who leaves everything behind to work on an oyster farm in a small New England town.

Thirty-two-year-old Cece Downing is sacked from her job as an actuary and dumped by her fiancé. With no plan and mounting debts, she spends the summer in New London, Connecticut and takes the only work going: a deckhand on an oyster boat.

To her surprise, Cece loves it – the hard graft, sea air and the craft of oyster farming. Ignoring her mother’s calls for a ‘proper’ job, she falls for her neighbour Morgan, a shipyard worker. When plans for an oyster farm divide the town, Cece must decide what she’s prepared to risk for the life she wants.

‘Fun, thoughtful, romantic!’ Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful and Dear Edward

‘This novel has everything I love about a New England summer: it’s warm, fun, the people are witty, and there’s a hot guy who works in the boatyard’ Annie Hartnett, Rabbit Cake and The Road to Tender Hearts

‘An intimate coastal portrait of reinvention, tracing a woman who trades certainty for saltwater’ Weike Wang, Rental House