About the Book
Book: Beach House Rescue
Author: Hope Toler Dougherty
Genre: Christian Romance
Release Date: June 23, 2026
Two strangers. One beach house. Zero plans to share it.
Tessa Trask expects a quiet summer restoring a friend’s beach house—not waking up to an intruder and defending herself as best she can. Wyatt Henry isn’t a burglar, though. He’s just as surprised to find her there—and just as determined to stay.
Under protest, the two agree to an uneasy truce. Tessa is creative and spontaneous. Wyatt is disciplined and guarded. Keeping their distance should be easy…until a surprise visitor arrives and turns their temporary arrangement into something far more complicated.
As sun-soaked days lead to deeper conversations, irritation softens into a fragile peace and grows into something worth protecting. While Tessa begins to trust God’s leading for her future, Wyatt wrestles with a past that makes trust feel dangerous.
Are their growing feelings worth the risk—or is walking away the only safe choice?
Click here to get your copy!
About the Author
Hope Toler Dougherty holds a Master’s degree in English and taught at East Carolina University and York Technical College. She’s written seven novels and one novella. Forever Free, won the Faith, Love, & Hope Reader’s Choice Award for 2025. Beach House Rescue is her newest release. She and her husband live in North Carolina and delight in visiting their two daughters, twin sons, and new daughter-in-law.
More from Hope
Have you ever heard of Vinegar Pie? This interesting dessert is Tessa Trask’s snack in the first scene of Beach House Rescue.
Vinegar Pie is a real dessert created generations ago when creative cooks didn’t always have fresh ingredients like lemons. Sometimes they were also called “desperation pies.” They’re similar to chess pies in texture and in their use of whatever ingredients the cook could find in the pantry.
The pie became very popular during the Great Depression when money and ingredients were scarce, but Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about her mother’s vinegar pie in Little House in the Big Woods.
Even though I grew up in the South, I’d never tasted this pie until I visited my parents after I’d moved to Pittsburgh, PA. A local shop was called Vinegar Pie, and I was intrigued. The store sold southern items and baked goods, among them Vinegar Pie. I tried a slice and enjoyed it!
Don’t worry. The pie doesn’t taste like a pickle. The flavor teases the taste buds with the tang of lemon and offsets the sweetness of the sugar.
Here’s a recipe if you’re intrigued, too.
Vinegar Pie
Ingredients:
4 large eggs
1 ¼ C sugar
2 T vinegar (apple cider or white)
¼ C butter, melted and cooled
1 T all-purpose flour
1 regular pie crust (not deep dish)
Directions:
- Bake the crust for 15 minutes at 350. Use beans or baking weights to keep the crust from puffing up.
- While the crust bakes, make the filling. Whisk the eggs and sugar until combined.
- While continuing to whisk, drizzle in the cooled butter and add the vinegar.
- Pour into the crust (after removing the weights) and bake for 30-35 minutes. The filling should just be set. If it’s a little jiggly, but golden brown on top, the filling will firm up as it cools.
Enjoy straight or with some whipped cream or ice cream. Tessa, Wyatt, and Skylee would take theirs with ice cream, for sure!
Interview with the Auhor
- What does the first part of your writing process look like?
Stories usually come to me as a scene. I usually let the scene ramble around in my mind for a few days, then I begin writing it down. I’ll freewrite on a yellow pad, just describing the scene and transcribing the dialog. Freewriting is quickly writing whatever comes to mind without worrying about grammar, punctuations, or plotting mistakes. I usually write several pages like that before setting up a Scrivener folder with the new story.
- What part of your writing process would surprise readers?
Procrastination! I write from home (and love it because I’m too nosy to write from coffee shops or other cool spots.) Before a writing session, I’m throwing in a load of laundry, preparing a meal in a crock pot, or discovering interesting things in my house that I’ve forgotten about. Suddenly, I’ll realize, I’m procrastinating. Now that I’ve accepted procrastinating as part of my process, I’ll allow myself to do those other things and then settle down to write.
- How long does it typically take you to finish a book?
I’m a slow writer. My typical goal is 1500 words per day, but I have friends who write much more than that. I began freewriting Beach House Rescue in August of 2023 and turned it in to my publisher in October of 2025. During that time, I launched Forever Free in January of 2024, then focused on marketing that book while I kept up volunteer responsibilities for my public library and church.
- What was the hardest part of writing this book?
I’ve never written a teenager before. Her slang was difficult because slang changes so quickly, and I didn’t want the words I chose to be out of date next year. I didn’t want the dialog to sound like an old person trying to be cool, and I didn’t want to lose my readers by using a word they might not be familiar with. It took a fine balance and much help from two different editors to write Sklyee’s speech patterns.
- What is the biggest thing you hope readers take away from this book?
One of the secondary characters encourages Tessa, the main character, not to let the familiar diminish the extraordinary. It’s a variation of the old adage, familiarity breeds contempt. Tessa discounts her crafting skills as true art which leads to discontentment.
Seeing with new eyes is an important idea for all of us. We sometimes look for the shiny without realizing that every day miracles are happening all around us if we open our eyes to see them. I hope Beach House Rescue will remind readers to use fresh eyes to see extraordinary things in the familiar.
Blog Stops
Book Reviews From an Avid Reader, September 22
Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, September 23
Simple Harvest Reads, September 24 (Author Interview)
Texas Book-aholic, September 25
Artistic Nobody, September 26 (Author Interview)
For Him and My Family, September 27
Guild Master, September 28 (Author Interview)
Devoted To Hope, September 29
Fiction Book Lover, September 30 (Author Interview)
Avid Reader Nurse, September 30
Fruitfully Planted, October 1
The Bookish Ledger, October 2 (Author Interview)
She Lives to Read, October 3
Cover Lover Book Review, October 3
For the Love of Literature, October 4 (Author Interview)
Holly’s Book Corner, October 5
Giveaway
To celebrate her tour, Hope is giving away the grand prize of a $75 Amazon gift card and a signed copy of Beach House Rescue!!
Be sure to comment on the blog stops for extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.
https://gleam.io/8sIt8/beach-house-rescue-celebration-tour-giveaway