Dear Friend,

I have been looking at this cover for weeks and it still stops me. The greenhouse. The lake. The light through the glass panels the way it comes in on an early Georgia morning. It is exactly the world I was trying to build.

I hope it feels like somewhere you want to go.

The book is at the formatter.

This is the last step before it goes to print — the interior being laid out, the pages numbered, the chapter headings set. When it comes back, it goes straight to MagneMind Media to be published. We are very close now, and I wanted to mark this moment by giving you something I have been saving.

The beginning.

— — —

COMING HOME TO AZALEA POINT
Chapter One

The email was three lines long, and it arrived between a merger closing and a call Emma didn't need to be on.

Storm damage, Rowan Property — Azalea Point, GA. Greenhouse roof partial collapse. North field irrigation compromised. Awaiting authorization to proceed with repairs.

Emma read it twice. Across the conference table, Whitmore was still talking.

“—which means the exit clause doesn't actually protect us the way Castellan's people think it does,” he was saying. “I want to walk through it again before Thursday.”

“You don't,” Emma said, not looking up from her phone. “I already walked through it. The clause protects us fine. You're worried about the wrong paragraph.”

“Which paragraph should I be worried about?”

“Four-point-two. The one you skipped because it's boring.” She looked up now. “Read it tonight. Call me if you still don't see it.”

Whitmore made a note.

Emma texted her assistant: Find a flight to Atlanta for Thursday, connecting if needed. One week, round trip. She put the phone face-down on the table.

“Going somewhere?” Whitmore asked.

“Georgia. Family property. Storm damage.” She said it the way she said everything that wasn't strictly business — efficiently, with no room left over for follow-up questions. “I'll be reachable.”

It would be, she noted privately, the first time she'd left Chicago for more than a few days in three years.

She loved Chicago in the way you loved something you had chosen and earned — not born into it, but built into it, block by block. She knew the green river on St. Patrick's Day and the Art Institute and the neighborhood bar on North Clark where the bartender remembered everyone's name and the piano player took requests without judgment. She had been to charity galas and private dinners and the Japanese Consulate General's residence on Sheridan Road in Evanston in a beaded dress, among brilliant people who had decided to be excellent and were competing, warmly, to be the most interesting person in the room.

And then there was the condo itself. Thirty-second floor at No. 9 Walton, south and east facing. During the day the lake stretched out to the horizon. At night the city glittered below her, a vast grid of light stretching south as far as she could see. Grand and dreamy and exciting all at the same time. The feeling that an extraordinary life was not just possible but already in progress, right outside the window, in every direction.

Both of those things were Chicago. All of it was hers.

She had not thought about what it would feel like to leave, because she had not expected to feel it.

She put the phone face-down on the conference table and went back to Whitmore's paragraph.

—

She called the number from the email that evening, still at her desk.

It rang four times before a man picked up, voice unhurried, like she'd caught him in the middle of something he wasn't going to rush on her account.

“Carter.”

— — —

That's where it begins.

Emma in Chicago, at the top of the world, with the feeling that something is missing and no name for it yet.

And a man in Georgia who picks up the phone on the fourth ring and doesn't rush for anyone.

I hope you'll want to know what happens next.

Release date coming soon.

The moment I have a confirmed date I will send it straight to your inbox — before social media, before anywhere else. If you have been meaning to share the free prequel novella with someone who might love this book, now is a wonderful time. The more people who find their way to Azalea Point before launch, the warmer the welcome will be.

Thank you for being here. It won't be long now.

With warmth,
Chloe Luxley

— — —

P.S. The Flower Farm at Azalea Point — the free prequel novella that introduces you to Emma, Luke, and the town — is still waiting for you here if you haven't read it yet: https://BookHip.com/TCZBMMW 🌸