Cece Downing Starts Over : A warm, witty novel about starting over, finding love, and discovering where you truly belong

Author: Soon Wiley

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 10 September 2026 by Simon & Schuster Ltd in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 368 pages
130 x 199 x 26 | 266g

A witty, heartfelt novel about a young woman who leaves everything behind to work on an oyster farm in a small New England town - perfect for readers of Lily King's Writers & Lovers and Jenny Jackson's The Shampoo Effect.

‘Fun, thoughtful, romantic!’Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful and Dear EdwardA new town, a new life, a new man – get ready for the reinvention of Cece Downing . . .

 Sacked from her city job and following a messy break up with her fiancé, Cece decides it’s time for a new start, which is how she ends up in a New England coastal town working as a deckhand on an oyster boat and falling for her neighbour, Morgan, a handsome shipyard worker.

But when plans for an oyster farm divide the community,  and a family crisis forces her to reevaluate her choices, Cece must decide what she’s prepared to risk for the life she wants . . .

‘This novel has everything I love about a New England summer: it’s warm, fun, the people are witty, and there’s a hot guy who works in the boatyard’ Annie Hartnett, Rabbit Cake and The Road to Tender Hearts‘An intimate coastal portrait of reinvention, tracing a woman who trades certainty for saltwater’ Weike Wang, Rental House