by Lynne Golodner
Charlie Tanner has spent nearly half her life at an agricultural commune called Anam Cara in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. After dropping out of college and severing ties with her family, she followed the man she believed to be the love of her life, James Grace, and settled into a life working in gardens and greenhouses and following the dictates of a strict spiritual community led by former hippies who sought refuge on the shores of Bras d'Or Lake, out of reach of American law enforcement.
When James dies suddenly, 40-year-old Charlie falls mute. People swirl around her, offering condolences, and she clutches the urn holding his ashes as if it were the child they never had. A box of money stashed inside a wall of the home they shared allows Charlie to flee the commune and rent a cottage in a small Vermont town, where she can process her grief in the garden. From a distance, she reviews the last twenty years and starts to see how unhealthy her relationship with James really was.
Eventually, she reconciles with her parents, and they come for a long visit, insisting on attending a local synagogue. While Charlie knew she had Jewish ancestry, her family never practiced religion during her childhood. However, she learns that when she cut them out of her life, her parents sought solace in their roots. At Shabbat services, she's stunned by an immediate connection with the sexy rabbi, a forty-seven-year-old widower named Parker.
Still, Charlie can't put her past behind her. Her best friend Boden shows up, carrying shocking information he uncovered at the commune: James' sudden heart attack might actually have been a murder. What's more, Boden brings some disturbing biological ties between James and some sixteen children.
As Charlie and Parker fall in love, and she tries to make sense of her past mistakes, Anam Cara's leader, Armand Villencourt, won't let anything-or anyone-go. Local police can't help-until Armand brings his bitterness to Charlie's front door. In the middle of an ice storm, she comes face-to-face with her fate-will she win a second chance at a better future, or linger in the destruction vindictive men have wrought?
Evoking the unlikely romance of the Netflix series Nobody Wants This and the intrigue and passion of Lucy Score's Forever Never, I Love You, Charlie Tanner is a steamy story of second chances, midlife love, and starting over, with a whiff of intrigue and surprising twists that'll keep you turning pages.
"Haunting, powerful, and intimate... I Love You, Charlie Tanner explores what happens when a woman dares to discover who she is beyond the man who once defined her."
Jean Meltzer, International Bestselling Author of The Matzah Ball
"Passionate and full of mystery, Lynne Golodner's I Love You, Charlie Tanner is as breathtaking as Cape Breton's rocky coast. But the novel also tackles bigger themes, like the ache of regret, and the tangles of family and faith. Golodner's Charlie is fully realized, a heroine who discovers a second chance at love, at independence, and at becoming the person she always hoped she could be. Golodner understands that grief and desire are two sides of the same coin, and by the end of this powerful story, so do we."
Christopher Locke, author of "Without Saints"
In this evocative novel from Lynne Golodner, a rich tapestry of love, loss, and second chances unfolds against the backdrop of breathtaking landscapes. Fans of Where the Crawdads Sing will be captivated by the lush, vivid descriptions of nature, drawing readers deep into a world where the land itself is as alive as the characters. The story weaves together the delicate threads of the human heart with the raw, powerful rhythms of the natural world.
Sarah Ansbacher, author of Wave After Wave and Ayuni
Lynne Golodner is the award-winning author of bestselling books where food, life and love weave into emotional stories interlaced with Jewish identity.
Lynne Golodner is the award-winning, bestselling author of 12 books and hundreds of essays and articles as well as a marketing expert, writing coach and retreat leader. After working as a journalist in New York and Washington, D.C., and earning an MFA in writing, Lynne returned to her Detroit hometown, where she created Your People, a marketing company with a focus on storytelling. Between 1996 and 2013, Lynne wrote eight books—two poetry collections and six nonfiction titles. In 2020, she pivoted to writing books with a goal of producing a book year. Her first novel, WOMAN OF VALOR, won an honorable mention in the Eric Hoffer Award for Spiritual Fiction. Lynne's second novel, CAVE OF SECRETS, hit #1 on Amazon in Jewish fiction, gay fiction and British and Irish literature and was a bronze medalist in the IPPY AWARDS for multicultural fiction. This book was also a FINALIST in the FOREWORD INDIES awards in Romance and LGBTQ+ fiction. In January 2025, Lynne launched FOREST WALK ON A FRIDAY, a collection of personal essays. Her third novel, I LOVE YOU, CHARLIE TANNER, launched in June of 2025. Lynne has degrees from the University of Michigan, Goddard College and a Certificate in Entrepreneurship from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program. She is the mother of four young adults and lives in Huntington Woods, Michigan. Learn more at https://lynnegolodner.com.