Some towns have long memories. Some hearts have longer ones. And some loves are worth every bit of the fight to get there.

In Cedar Falls, Tennessee, population 4,200, everyone knows everything about everyone.

Which means everyone knows that the Coles and the Hargroves have not spoken in twenty-two years.

Savannah Cole, 32, has built everything she has on her own terms. She owns the bookstore her grandfather built, runs the town's most beloved book club, and has maintained a careful and comfortable distance from anything that might cost her more than she is willing to pay. She is warm to everyone and close to no one. She has her reasons.

Daniel Hargrove, 35, came back to Cedar Falls eight months ago to help run his family's construction company and did not intend to stay. He has a life in Nashville, a relationship that works on paper, and no particular plans for the bookstore on Main Street.

Then he walks in on a Tuesday morning and orders a coffee and takes the chair by the window.

He comes back the following Tuesday.

And the Tuesday after that.

By the sixth Tuesday Savannah has stopped telling him to leave and started wondering why she ever wanted him to.

But Cedar Falls has a long memory and the history between their families runs deeper than either of them knows, a business partnership, a fire, a friendship that ended in a hospital parking lot at two in the morning and never found its way back. The town has taken sides. Their families have taken sides. And a love that the whole community can see developing in a bookstore window is not the same as a love the community is prepared to accept.

Savannah has spent eight years building walls.
Daniel has spent his whole life being careful.

And somewhere between a note left on page 47 and the truth their families have been keeping for twenty-two years, two people are going to have to decide whether the history they inherited is more important than the future they could build.

WHAT THE HEART KEEPS is a deeply emotional small town romance about the courage it takes to love someone the world says you cannot have, the secrets families carry past the point they need to, and the specific bravery of two people who decide to be braver than the people who came before them.

Because some loves are forbidden. And some forbidden things are worth every bit of the fight.