Five Years Later by Sarah Kraft
"Should it?" I try to hide my disagreement.
A smile lifts her wrinkled cheeks. "Yup... Without chaos, there is no growth."
Elle Fox is a twenty-three-year-old dog mom living in a tiny house outside of Portland, Oregon. With a newly divorced mother next door who is starting over at fifty and a wealthy, narcissist father she hasn't been able to look at since "the incident", adulthood has become more chaotic than anticipated. When an old friend invites her to join a group “zencation” to the Oregon Coast, Elle finds herself in the charming town of Newport in a picturesque mansion with her former high school peeps... and another man she can hardly stand to look at: her ex, Scott Darcy. Five years ago, Scott had pulled Elle in like a rip tide. A rebel with a taste for adventure, he swept her away from small town life into the vast beauty of the outdoors. They had plans to see the world together… until he left her for someone else.But sometimes things are not as they appear. When Elle finds an old trinket box in Scott's truck that tells another story about their breakup, she must choose between shunning the past - and two of the most important men in her life - for good, or digging it up to heal a love that should've never been lost and a bond that should've never been broken.
Told in dual timelines, FIVE YEARS LATER explores the trials of true love, the ties of a family divided, and the challenges of forgiving those who unintentionally hurt us - including ourselves.