Stories worth getting lost in.

Maggie Sinclair had always believed that a town could be judged by how it decorated for its festivals, and by that measure, Cedar Cove was doing just fine. Strings of amber and gold bunting crisscrossed Harbor Street from the lamppost outside the bakery all the way down to the old stone church, and every shopfront along the way had dressed its windows for the Fall Harvest Festival. Hers was no exception.

She stood back from the window of Bobbins & Baubles, her little shop of vintage buttons, notions, and secondhand sewing treasures, and considered the display she'd spent the better part of the morning arranging: a cascade of autumn-colored ribbon spilling from an old wicker basket, a scatter of amber and copper buttons fanned out like fallen leaves, and, in the center of it all, the pride of her collection — a card of hand-carved bone buttons that had once belonged, according to the woman who'd sold them to her, to a sea captain's wife in 1890-something.

“It's going to rain on the quilt exhibit, you mark my words,” said Dot Ferris, letting herself in without knocking, the way she'd been doing since Maggie opened the shop three years ago. Dot was somewhere in her seventies, wore reading glasses on a beaded chain even though she didn't need them for most things, and ran the Cedar Cove sewing circle with the quiet authority of a woman who had outlasted several mayors.