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Former Gates County resident Janet Morris Belvin has written a novel set on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

The Bookshop on Beach Road, a 284 page dual timeline historical romance is set in the beach town of Nags Head in Dare County, North Carolina. The novel, Belvin’s third book, is set partly in 1942 when Nazi U-Boats were torpedoing vessels all along the coast and partly in 1994. It’s an extraordinary book about love, loss and heroics.

Summer, 1942 – The idyllic days on the Outer Banks of North Carolina are abruptly shattered when Hitler’s U-Boats steal into the waters offshore torpedoing commercial and military vessels. A tall, handsome Coast Guardsman, Finn Ingram, flies spotter planes searching for Hitler’s Wolfpack. On his days off, he meets a pretty brunette waitress, Louise Gates, and falls in love. Will Hitler’s Operation Drumbeat break hearts as well as destroy ships carrying important war materiel for Great Britain?

Summer, 1994 – Louise’s great niece Della Gates comes home to Nags Head to nurse her broken heart after finding out her fiancé has been untrue. She is hired to restore and reopen her great aunt’s Beach Road bookshop, L. Gates, Bookseller. In the process she meets and falls in love with local fireman Luke Howard. Can this be the second chance in life she needs?

Through explosions, fires, hurricanes, and broken hearts, the Ingram, Gates and Howard families are brought together through their patriotism, loyalty and love. Inspired by the history of actual U-Boat attacks on the North Carolina coast during the Second World War, this book will transport you in time to a beach that you remember or that you wish you remembered.

Belvin is also the author of Southern Stories from the Porch Swing, her memoir published in 2018, and The Refuge, a mystery romance published in 2021.

The mother of three and grandmother of nine, she lives in Williamsburg, VA with her husband Paul and is a former teacher. She is an occasional columnist for the Gates County Index and writes for magazines and newspapers in North and South Carolina.

Belvin can be reached at pauljanetbelvin@gmail.com or at her Facebook page Janet Morris Belvin, Author. She will be at the Gates County Public Library, 14 Cypress Creek Drive, Gatesville, at 6 p.m. on Dev. 14 to talk about and sign her new book.

The Bookshop on Beach Road is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Books A Million and other bookstores or at Belvin’s online bookshop https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-bookshop-on-beach-road