If You Say So by Megan Reinking

When Sydney Peterson’s mother was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s years ago, her gut reaction was to run, finding it much too hard to stay and face the harsh reality. Years later, she finds herself back home in northern Minnesota as the lead architect on a large renovation project, and she’s determined to push aside the lingering heartbreak that ruminates while she’s there. As if that wasn’t hard enough, she comes face to face with another ghost from her past—one she has long despised. Cole Fredrickson. A grumpy cabin owner who refuses to sell the land she was hoping to attain.

When a phone call inquiring about the sale of his cabin prompts Cole Fredrickson to travel home to check on the property, he finds the place in need of some fixing up after having neglected it for far too long. While there, he encounters not only past demons of his own, but a spunky, hint-of-a-flame from high school who proves to be irritatingly persistent about buying it. What she doesn’t know is that he doesn’t plan on ever selling—especially to her. But that doesn’t mean he won’t enjoy watching her try.

Will their pasts threaten to keep them both firmly stuck in their ways? Or will coming together prove to be exactly what the other needs to heal?