Twenty-five years after she began exchanging drawings with a mysterious boy in the guest book of a Carolina beach house, Macy Dillon is back at Sunset Beach--this time toting a hurting heart and a broken family. Questions of childhood, loss, and longing for love are explored in The Guest Book.

When Macy Dillon was five years old her father encouraged her to draw a picture in the guestbook of a Carolina beach house. The next year, Macy returned to discover a drawing by an unidentified little boy on the facing page. Over the next eleven years the children continue to exchange drawings ... until tragedy ends visits to the beach house altogether. During her final trip to Sunset, Macy asks her anonymous friend to draw her one last picture and tells him where to hide the guest book in hopes that one day she will return to find it--and him.

Twenty-five years after that first picture, Macy is back at Sunset Beach--this time toting a broken family and a hurting heart. One night, alone by the ocean, Macy asks God to help her find the boy she never forgot, the one whose beautiful pictures touched something deep inside of her. Will she ever find him? And if she does, will the guestbook unite them or merely be the relic of a lost childhood?

Whalen, Marybeth

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen is the author of This Secret Thing, as well as Only Ever Her, When We Were Worthy, The Things We Wish Were True and five previous novels, which have sold over half a million copies. Marybeth received a BA degree in English with a concentration in writing and editing from North Carolina State University a long time ago and has been writing ever since. Marybeth and her husband, Curt, are the parents of six children, ranging in age from young adult to teen. A native of Charlotte, NC, Marybeth now calls Sunset Beach, NC, home. You can find out more about her, read her regular posts on Substack, or even find a link to the commercial she starred in at the age of five, at linktr.ee/Marybethwhalen.