Case Nichols has always worn his charm like armor, but when he encounters the transformed Chelsea—his best friend since adolescence—he struggles to reconcile the connection they once shared. Blindsided by her emotional distance after a messy falling out, Case must confront the trauma that has shaped him, leading him to question everything he thought he knew about commitment and his future.
Chelsea Westerly has spent years dealing with her past, including the painful memories tied to her brother’s actions. After a summer on her own, abroad and focused on her future, she returns home to find that Case doesn’t even recognize the woman she’s become. Torn between her lingering feelings and the hurt of their unfinished business, she seriously grapples with the idea of giving him another chance or finally moving on for good.
As their lives intertwine as they always seem to do, Justin, Case's twin brother, navigates his own relationship with Ginny, pushing to make their engagement official unable to understand why she won’t commit.
As the four strive to improve their futures, the complexities of love, loyalty, and friendship become twist against the challenges of familial expectations, their chosen pursuits, and tight community ties.
Aurora Bay explores the healing power of love and the complexities of past traumas. With the lush Alaskan wilderness as their backdrop, the two couples must confront their emotional scars to forge new paths together, or risk losing the precious bonds they’ve tenderly nurtured. Can they do it? Will they help each other, or is it finally time to look out for themselves—leaving the others to find their own paths?
This standalone is also the seventh book in the Thunder Bay Seiner Series, where the intricate lives of brothers, friends, and their families are woven together through romance, resilience, and the unyielding spirit of Alaskan adventure—strong language included!
MM Travis has lived and worked in Anchorage and Seward, Alaska. She loves exploring the state and has done so on foot, and via vehicles, campers, kayak, seiner, ferry, and several sized aircraft, from Galbraith Lake above the arctic circle to the southeast panhandle, and from Kodiak to McCarthy and Tok.
A lover of all things salmon, she advocates for their protection and enjoys harvesting them. She’s caught salmon by hook, dipnet, fishwheel, seine net (and once by hand) from the Copper River, Gulkana, Kenai River, Prince William Sound, and the Outer District of the North Gulf Coast of Alaska.
She is the author of over twenty books, from non-fiction to romance, and has collaborated with Max Travis on a commercial fishing family saga based in Alaska. She loves writing contemporary romance with happy endings, often with second chance, small town, and ‘fish out of water’ tropes.
Max was born in Seward and has spent most of his life there and in the bays of the North Gulf Coast of Alaska. His father was a commercial fisherman and Max has spent his life fishing for fun, for food, and to support his family.
With fifty years of experience, he’s watched biologists attempt to change everything imaginable about fishing and it never works. He adamantly opposes man’s interference with the natural wild salmon stocks because he’s seen way too much damage it’s done.
When he’s not fishing or working on boats and gear, Max enjoys campfires on his property and traveling the lower 48 states during the darkest days of winter.
Max traces his heritage to Kodiak and the Aleutian Islands.