Where We Stayed

Some beginnings do not arrive like fireworks. Some arrive like weather.

Laura Donnelly promised her children they were staying. She never promised she would let anyone else in.


Six years after her husband’s sudden death, Laura has built a careful Belfast life around her children, her writing and the rules that keep grief—and risk—manageable. Then Jamie Callaghan walks back into her weather.


Jamie is the boy from three streets over who became a famous actor. He is also a devoted father, a man tired of leaving, and the last person Laura needs turning rainy rugby matches, school gates and family dinners into something dangerously hopeful.


As their children grow closer and old affection becomes impossible to dismiss, the private life Laura fought to protect begins attracting cameras, headlines and decisions made without consent. When Jamie’s public world crosses the threshold of her home, love will not be enough. He must learn that protecting a family means including them in the truth—and Laura must decide whether staying can mean more than surviving.


Witty, tender and deeply emotional, Where We Stayed is a contemporary Belfast romance about widowhood, blended families, fame, privacy and making room for new love without asking the old love to disappear.


A complete standalone novel with a hard-earned, hopeful ending.