Books Like Klara and the Sun

The Castaway

Stephanie Taylor

Ruby Hudson used to be America’s First Lady. Now she just wants to be left alone with her books and her regrets. After her husband—the President of the United States—dies under mysterious circumstances, Ruby is left with a lifetime of questions, a public still obsessed with her every move, and two grown daughters who think she's lost her mind. So, she runs. Not to a fancy villa or a European spa, but to a pirate-themed island called Shipwreck Key, where she opens a tiny bookshop and tries to disappear. No press. No politics. Just quiet. Until he shows up. Dexter North is too young, too intense, and way too determined to dig up every secret of her late husband's presidency—including the kind that could ruin his legacy... and Ruby’s life. He’s charming in that annoyingly earnest journalist way, and unfortunately, he’s not going anywhere. Then, as if things weren’t complicated enough, the President’s secret mistress arrives. With their twelve-year-old son. And a letter. From her husband. Written before he died. Now Ruby has to decide: does she open the letter and face the truth about the man she thought she knew? Or does she let the past stay buried and try—finally—to start over? On a quirky island full of castaways and second chances, one former First Lady is about to rewrite her own story.