New York Situations bestselling author Susan Elizabeth Phillips is normally back with a wonderful novel filled with her sassy wit and dazzling charm

Deepest winter.

An isolated island from the coast of Maine.

A man. A female.

Puppets. (Yes, puppets .)

And . . .

A mysterious home looming over the ocean . . .

He’s a reclusive article writer whose imagination creates chilling horror novels. She’s a down-on-her-luck actress reduced to staging children’ puppet displays. He knows twelve ways to eliminate his characters with his about Heroes Are My Weakness: A Book bare hands. She understands a dozen ways to destroy an market with laughs. But she’s not really laughing now.

Annie Hewitt has arrived on Peregrine Isle in the middle of a snowstorm and by the end of her assets. She’s broke, dispirited, but not quite ready to give up. Her reddish suitcases contain the puppets she uses to make her living: practical Dilly, spunky Scamp, and Leo, the baddest of bad guys. Her puppets, the passionate novels she adores, and a little bit of courage are she has still left.

Annie couldn’t be more ill prepared for what she finds when she reaches Moonraker Cottage or for the person who dwells in Harp Home, the mysterious mansion that hovers above the cottage. When she was a teenager, he betrayed her in ways she can’t ever forget or forgive. Now they’re trapped collectively on a iced island along with a lonesome widow, a mute litttle lady, and townspeople who have no idea how to mind their personal business.

Is he the villain she remembers, or offers he changed? Her mind says no. Her heart says yes.

It’s going to be an extended, hot winter.