When Kathleen Deanes husband, Tom, tells her he’s no longer happy with his life and their marriage, Kathleen is confused. They live in Kansas. Theyve been married thirty years. Who said anything about being happy? But with Tom off finding himself, Kathleen starts to think about what she wants. And her thoughts lead her to a small beach community on the east coast, a town called Whitbey that has always looked lovely in the Christmas letters her childhood friend Josie sends every year.

It turns out, though, that life in Whitbey is nothing like Josies letters. Kathleens new neighbor, Rosemary, is cantankerous, and the towns supervisor won’t return Kathleens emails, but worst of all is the Sugar Cube, the monstrosity masquerading as a holiday home that Kathleens absentee neighbors are building next door to her quaint (read: tiny) cottage. As Kathleen gets more and more involved in the fight against the Sugar Cube and town politics overall, she realizes that Whitbey may not be a fairytale, but it just might be exactly what she needed.