Eleanor Hartwell, 74
Proprietor of the Nightingale Inn since 1971 · Novella
Eleanor raised five grandchildren, makes the pie everyone in town has an opinion about, and has run the front desk since 1971. Her family are quite sure they know her.
The cast
The Hartwells
One grandmother, five grandchildren, one inn none of them can afford to let fall down.
Books one and two
The people you’ll meet
Everyone you spend time with in the two books you can read now.
Graham Hartwell, 36
Innkeeper · Book One
Graham has run the inn since he was twenty-four, which is long enough to have stopped counting it as a decision. His highest praise is two words, and June spends most of a summer trying to earn the second one.
Paired with June Calloway
Wren Hartwell, 33
Events coordinator · Book Two
Wren has built a career on the principle that any disaster becomes survivable once it is a seating chart. Her own wedding was the exception, and the man responsible is coming back to sponsor the festival.
Paired with Leo Tran
June Calloway
Pastry chef · Book One
Hired over the phone on the strength of one galette. Came north to stop making herself smaller and found a kitchen nobody had reorganized since 1994.
Leo Tran
Harbor master · Book Two
Leo has held the harbor for eleven years and sees every boat that comes and goes. He agreed to be Wren’s fake boyfriend in under four seconds, which everyone noticed except Wren.
The Knitting Circle
Marguerite, Dot, Adaeze and Phyllis
They meet on Tuesdays, know everything, and hold firmer opinions about your personal life than you do. Nobody elected them to run Larkspur Cove and nobody has managed to stop them.
Admiral
Goat
Admiral belongs to the inn in the sense that the inn has stopped arguing about it. He wears a navy bandana and has opinions about the lupines.
Pip Hartwell
Sadie’s daughter, aged seven
Pip works out most things about the adults around her before they do. She is not discreet about it.
Still to come
More from Larkspur Cove
They are all in the town already. Their books are still being written.
Beckett Hartwell, 30
Chef · Book Three
Beckett left as soon as he was able, to cook somewhere that counted, and came back because the restaurant closed. He is aware that the inn kitchen has been waiting for him the entire time and finds that intolerable.
Paired with Maya Reyes
Sadie Hartwell, 38
Bookkeeper, and the eldest of the five · Book Four
Eleanor’s eldest grandchild and cousin to the other four, raised alongside them. Sadie keeps the inn solvent, raises Pip, and has decided that one great love was a reasonable allotment. Caleb has never argued with her about it, which is the problem.
Paired with Dr. Caleb Frost
Finn Hartwell, 27
Handyman and harbor lifeguard · Book Five
Finn fixes whatever the inn breaks, which is a full-time job with overtime. He has been in love with Olive Park since he was six and has handled it by saying nothing for twenty-one years.
Paired with Olive Park
Maya Reyes, 31
Owner of Cove Books and Charts · Book Three
Maya runs the bookshop on the harbor front and has built an entire life in the town Beckett drove away from. She is not waiting for him to come back, and says so often enough to be convincing.
Dr. Caleb Frost
Veterinarian · Book Four
Caleb took over the practice on Harbor Street and inherited Admiral as a patient. He is unhurried in a way that Sadie initially mistook for not paying attention.
Olive Park, 27
Town librarian · Book Five
Olive has run the library since she was twenty-two and can find anything in it in the dark. She has accepted a post in Portland and told Finn last.
Henrik Voss
Guest, eventually · Novella
A visitor from Eleanor’s past, arriving in December without a reservation. His being here raises a question she has spent forty years not answering.
Meet them properly
Start with Book One and arrive in Larkspur Cove the way June does, on the afternoon ferry with too much luggage.