Hell's Bells

Eric Phillips is nineteen, working hard, carrying more responsibility than most people realize, and doing his best to keep the temper that has gotten him into trouble from controlling his life. He knows exactly where the lines are supposed to be—especially the one surrounding his best friend's younger sister. Then Joanie Caldwell comes home. Eric remembers a scrappy kid who used to trail after the boys. The girl standing in front of him now is sixteen, sharp-tongued, stubborn, funny, and entirely too good at getting under his skin. He tells himself she is trouble. He tells himself Brad would kill him. He tells himself a lot of things. None of them help. As autumn turns to winter in 1959 Cincinnati, Eric finds himself pulled deeper into Joanie's world: drive-in movies, basketball, family dinners, snowstorms, school drama, and the kind of ordinary moments that somehow become the ones he can't stop thinking about. But loving Joanie means confronting more than Brad's disapproval. Eric must face his own grief, anger, fears, and the question of whether a man can become more than the mistakes he has made. Hell's Bells is the companion novel to Return to Love, telling the same unforgettable season from Eric's point of view while opening the door to the moments Joanie never saw. Romantic, funny, emotional, and unmistakably Eric, it is the other half of their first-love story.