Overview

The rumor wanted a scandal. Honeycomb Harbor wanted the truth. When a cropped still and a trending audio clip claim the lighthouse love letters are a modern affair, editor Ivy Bellamy draws a line in red pencil: no faces, no frenzy, just receipts the whole town can see. Rae Porter—curious, relentless, and inconveniently charming—arrives with a recorder and a tuning fork and asks to help build the table where the truth will be tested. They are rivals on paper, allies in practice, and the sparks between them are the warm kind that make neighbors smile through the Chronicle window. Across daisy-bright afternoons and cocoa-warmed nights, Ivy and Rae log a vintage reel-to-reel, match a repair tag to a volunteer’s notebook, and check a steady 60 Hz hum with that pocket tuning fork. Each step is translated into plain English on the window: what we tried, what we found, what we refuse to guess. Kids press their hands to a blue tape line labeled you are included here. Neighbors pin red paper hearts with witness lines—Observed. Points toward. Will not claim.—because in this harbor, curiosity comes with care. The hot-mic clip that lit the fuse? Modern compression pretending to be history. The reel itself? Period-true, contextualized, and handled like the heirloom it is. While the town learns how to listen without harm, a slow-burn romance opens in broad daylight. Ivy, exacting and tender where it counts, discovers that authority feels safer when shared. Rae, playful and principled, proves that rigor and warmth belong in the same episode. Their courtship is competence as flirtation: a shared workflow, a near-kiss interrupted by a chime, a public thank-you on-mic that lands like a touch. They do not chase virality. They choose the ethic before the headline—and still make great radio. This is cozy to the bone: a postcard Maine setting; found family; a gossip blog that loses its grip when receipts appear; Milo the nap-forward cat claiming the foam windscreens; Captain Ruthie with a sailor’s whistle and a memory for honest sea terms; the Driftwood Inn pouring tea for volunteers; Zee’s Harbor Café sending over scones when meetings run long. The mystery is light and human, the stakes are local and emotional, and the answers arrive with the soft certainty of neighbors who know one another’s names. Bake along at home: the back matter includes two comfort recipes drawn straight from the scenes—**Red Pencil Raspberry Linzer Bars** (browned-butter crumb, ruby jam windows, a snowfall of powdered sugar) and **Pressroom Cheddar-Chive Scones** (sharp cheddar, fresh chives, golden tops brushed with cream). The instructions are clear, substitution-friendly, and written in the same calm voice Ivy uses at the window. Make a tray for your own listening night or your next book club and let your kitchen smell like community. Read if you love: enemies to colleagues; editor x podcaster; competence porn; small-town sapphic comfort; gentle media ethics; romances that kiss in public and fade to soft after. Paper Hearts & Red Pencils can be enjoyed as a stand-alone entry or as part of the Hearts of Honeycomb Harbor series—twenty-five books of comfort, chemistry, and community on the coast. Includes two step-by-step bake-along recipes in the back, because some stories deserve a snack.