Overview

When biology professor Emily Garner returns to Winding Way, a lakeside resort tucked deep in the pinewoods of Washington, she’s expecting ghosts. Not literal ones, but the echo of childhood summers, fractured family bonds, and the ache of a life that looks perfect on paper but feels anything but.

What she doesn’t expect is Kara Brandt.

Kara, the daughter of the resort’s former owners, now runs the property with a strength that unsettles and grounds Emily in equal measure. Their early exchanges are awkward, teasing, and tinged with something that feels like recognition. Not just of shared pasts, but of deeper desires neither woman has named in years.

As days unfold beneath the swaying pines and beside the shimmer of the lake, over porch beers, late-night texts, morning swims, and candlelit truths, Emily begins to let down her carefully managed walls. But old wounds run deep. From her strained relationship with her family to a long-ago heartbreak that never fully healed, Emily has spent years curating safety instead of chasing happiness.

Kara sees through that act.

And she invites Emily to feel again. To risk again. To stay.

Set against the stillness of a fading summer and the gentle rhythm of the lake, Far Side of the Lake is a tender, slow-burn romance about coming home to yourself and finding someone who sees the real you and chooses you.

For readers who love emotionally rich, character-driven Sapphic stories with heart, heat, and hope, this is the beginning of something unforgettable.