Can love begin before time runs out? Lifelong clock obsessive Pippa Bell never expected to flee her own wedding — or to end up stranded on Puffin Island in the middle of a soaking wet July. A last-minute competition win lands her at Clockmaker’s Cottage, once home to the legendary (and famously feuding) Vale brothers, whose timepieces shaped her childhood dreams. Pippa’s plan for a quiet reset quickly unravels when she discovers she’s sharing the cottage with her old university nemesis, Professor Theo Blake. Things grow more complicated when Sebastian Worthington-Frost — charming, ambitious, and very much part of her past — arrives with secrets of his own. As storms lash the island and long-buried secrets about the Vale brothers’ feud surface, Pippa must confront old rivalries, unfinished business, and the question of what she truly wants — before time runs out.