Tides of Your Love
Riviera Shores
New Adult, Adult, contemporary romance, small-town romance, reconnecting romance
Independently published
June 18, 2025
Kindle, Paperback
336
Owen Wheaton isn’t just a soccer icon—he’s also my brother’s off-limits best friend.
My once-upon-a-time protector. My first everything.
When an injury sends him home to our small California town, we end up living under the same roof. Only Owen isn’t the boy who left—he’s a world-famous athlete who dates models, tops hottest man alive lists, and has full stadiums singing his praise.
But I know the version of him the world doesn’t see. The one who made me believe I was more than my stutter. The one I trusted to be my first—all those years ago.
I’ve built a quiet, full life—crafting handmade products for the shop I manage, filming YouTube videos to face my stutter head-on, and finding strength in my own voice. But now he’s everywhere—on my porch, in my kitchen, under my skin.
The simmering tension between us boils over ... and nothing will ever be the same.
He’s looking at me like I’ve always been his. But I keep telling myself I never really was.
Because if I was—if I am—what happens when he goes back to his game and takes my heart with him as a trophy?
“With her, I didn’t need constant motion to outrun truths, feelings, voids. I could be still. I could be bare – body, heart, and soul.”
Lily Baines takes us back to Riviera Shores, a charming California sea-side town, in her latest story, Tides of Your Love. Rio is just going through life; she has a job she loves, friends she adores, and a secure place to live as old man Walter’s live in care-giver in the sea-side house owned by Walter’s grandson, soccer star Owen Wheaton. Not only is Owen international renowned but he is also Rio’s brother’s childhood best friend and her first love. She has dated other guys but she has yet to find anyone that moves her the way Owen does, but she has no delusions that she is even in the same league as Owen. When a potiontial career-ending injury forces Owen back to California to recouperate they soon realize that time has not dampened the flame that was ignited sixteen years ago.
“I didn’t know then that sixteen years later, I’d be in love with her – trying to trace the beginning, still unsure about the end.”
Tides of Your Heart is a wonderful story that truly left my heart happy. It has everything I want in a contemporary romance: characters that are unique and authentic, a storyline that keeps me engaged page after page, and romance that has all the feels. Every book Lily writes does that for me, which is why she is one of my go-to romance authors. Told from both main character’s POV allows me to get to know each MC more intimately and get drawn deeper into their relationship. Owen is an outwardly strong, charismatic, and successful man but this masks a heart that has never been vulnerable except with Rio. Rio has grown up struggling to be accepted because of her pronounced stutter. Except for family and close friends the only other one who ever really seemed to “see” her was Owen. However, the fact that he is her brother’s best friend continually puts a barrier between them. I loved how they navigated their own issues as well as honestly allowing their relationship to grow. I also appreciate how Lily incorporates natural difficulties but doesn’t add undo conflict into her stories. I want to read a romance for the good tension not the stress. Let me tell you, Lily has lots of “good tension” between Owen and Rio.
Tides of Your Heart is written in the Riviera Shores world but is a standalone story. Lily has a wonderful, easy flowing style of writing that will sweep you away into this small town, coastal California community. Cameos by people showcased in her other books are bound to show up, which I also enjoy, and provide updates to their stories. If you are looking for the perfect escape from your day to day life, a Lily Baines story will captivate you and leave your inner reader content with this heart-warming, steemy romance.
“I knew there was no coming back from this. I was his. And he was mine.”
Just what my heart needed
Tanya’s love for books has been a lifelong passion that she likes sharing with others. Reading is also the thing that relaxes her after a day of juggling the many responsibilities that come with being being wife to an amazing man, mother to four great kids spread around the world, business manager, and farm hand on their place in southwest Missouri; home to Akaushi cattle and a menagerie of pygmy goats, horses, chickens, dogs and cats.
