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For Melissa Payne, the spark for this book came from a variety of different articles and documentaries that shed light on the relational role of libraries as inclusive, modern-day sanctuaries of more than just books. She learned of a library that accepted all manuscripts submitted to it. She watched a documentary on the opioid epidemic that highlighted a

librarian who was trained to use naloxone to save people overdosing. “I heard a powerful quote from a librarian that libraries are perhaps the last place in society where they welcome you, where you don’t have to buy or believe anything. So, I wanted to write about a library that faces very real challenges every day, and that brings strangers together. I also wanted to explore how it’s easy to make assumptions about people rather than wait and get to know someone.”



About the Book: Orphaned at a young age and witness to her brother’s decline into addiction, Nora Martinez has every excuse to question the fairness of life. Instead, the openhearted librarian in the small Colorado community sees only promise. She holds on to the hope that she’ll be reunited with her missing brother and does what she can at the town library. It’s her home away from home, but it’s also a sanctuary for others who, like her brother, could use a second chance.



There’s Marlene, an elderly loner who believes that, apart from her husband, there’s little good left in the world; Jasmine, a troubled teen; Lewis, a homeless man with lost hope and one last wish; and Vlado, the security guard who loves a good book.



As a winter storm buries Silver Ridge, this collection of lonely hearts takes shelter in the library. They’ll discover more about each other, and themselves, than they ever knew—and Nora will be forced to question her brother’s disappearance in ways she never could have imagined. No matter how stranded in life they feel, this fateful night could be the new beginning they didn’t think was possible.