SOLSTICE
A misty Oregon coast under a deep midnight sky.

SOLSTICE

A Slow Burn Romance Trilogy

by Zara Grace

Some women escape.

Some women survive.

Some women learn to love.

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The Trilogy

Three women.
One cult.
Three paths toward freedom.

On a quiet stretch of the Oregon coast, three women begin again. They learn that healing is not a single act of courage, but a thousand small choices made in the dark. And that the deepest love stories are written not in fire, but in patience.

BOOK I

Abigail

Escape

All her life she had known only the shadows on the wall. Now she steps out of the cave, and the light of the real world — its colors, its noise, its tenderness — meets her eyes for the very first time.

BOOK II

Amy

Survive

Free at last, she discovers freedom tastes bitter — and sets out to find the child she was forced to leave behind.

BOOK III

Willow

Reclaim

Put on trial after Solstice falls, she is the one the world calls guilty — innocent, but never given the voice to say so.

Cover of Solstice Book I: Abigail

Book I

Abigail

Freedom · Identity · Belonging

Available Now

Raised inside the closed walls of Solstice, Abigail has never chosen anything for herself — not her clothes, not her prayers, not the man she was promised to. The night she finally walks out, she takes nothing but the dress on her back and the stars overhead. In Breakwater she finds work at The Haven, the small café-restaurant kept by Michael — a quiet man who splits his days between his counter and the family farm, who asks her for nothing and waits, patiently, for everything.

"Tonight, I had tasted music. Tasted freedom. And it had gone to my head."
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Cover of Solstice Book II: Amy

Book II

Amy

Motherhood · Justice · Hope

Coming Soon

Amy made it out of Solstice — and discovered that freedom has a bitter taste. The world beyond the walls is louder, colder, and far less kind than she was promised. But none of it matters next to the one thing she cannot leave behind: the child the Sisters of Innocence took from her in the name of her education, and never gave back. With nothing but the road ahead, she hitchhikes across Oregon trying to reach Abigail, the only person who might help her. Somewhere along that road she meets James, a lawyer who chooses to believe her — and to fight, in courtrooms and in silences, to bring her daughter home.

"Behind me, freedom hangs like a coat too large for my shoulders. It doesn't feel like victory. Freedom has a strange taste. Bitter with loneliness and hunger, heavy with a silence I still don't know how to fill. And no… human justice doesn't mend everything."
Cover of Solstice Book III: Willow

Book III

Willow

Justice • Truth • Redemption

Coming Soon

When Solstice falls, the world needs someone to blame — and Willow is one of those dragged before the court. Born behind the walls, raised in silence, she has neither the words nor the voice to explain what she saw, what she endured, what she never chose. To the world, the line between captor and captive is blurred, and her silence sounds like a confession. Across the courtroom stands Gabriel, the prosecutor representing the State of Oregon — sharp, virulent, certain of her guilt. But nothing is as it seems. The longer Willow sits beneath the cold spotlight of the law, the more his notion of right and wrong begins to blur, until the man sent to condemn her becomes the one who can no longer look away.

"In Solstice, injustice was naked—brutal, undeniable—and everyone knew their place. Here, power takes another form, less visible but just as crushing. I don't understand the rules of this justice, yet it will decide my fate."

Oregon, USA

A Map of the World

Map of Oregon, USA, with the fictional towns of Providence Hollow, Linby and Breakwater.

As I First Imagined Them

The People Behind the Story

Abigail

Abigail

Michael

Michael

Amy

Amy

James

James

Willow

Willow

Gabriel

Gabriel

The Guide

The Guide

Pastor Elias Shaw

What the Books Are About

Ten Quiet Themes

  1. 01

    Freedom

    Not a single door, but a thousand quiet choices.

    "For now, I am alive. I am free. And I can question everything I was once forbidden to question."

  2. 02

    Hope

    The smallest pilot light in a long winter.

    "You stand like a flame."

  3. 03

    Found Family

    The people who stay because they want to.

    "A quiet slice of living."

  4. 04

    Trauma Recovery

    Healing is not linear. It is a long, patient season.

    "You cannot free a slave who believes his chain is a belt of salvation."

  5. 05

    Silence

    The kind that listens, not the kind that punishes.

    "Silence settled again—but it wasn't heavy anymore. It was full. Weighted with gratitude and quiet release."

  6. 06

    Faith

    What is left after the rules fall away.

    "In that refuge beyond time, nothing was urgent. The rest could wait."

  7. 07

    Love

    Patience as a daily act of choice.

    "You gave me the time and space to inhabit my own skin again."

  8. 08

    Dignity

    The radical idea that she is allowed to take up space.

    "I refuse to become a body without a voice."

  9. 09

    Motherhood

    Lineages of women remaking the women who come next.

    "The secret that beat softly under his fingers."

  10. 10

    Resilience

    Not steel, but reed — bending, returning.

    "Then I take the ring between my fingers. It is slender, but its perfect curve carries the weight of an entire story."

"What he shattered was the silence of a lifetime, the invisible border between my past and this night."
"I've spent my whole life staring at shadows. And now the light terrifies me."
"I felt a childlike wonder."
"Our first meeting would happen in darkness."
Author portrait of Zara Grace.

ZARA GRACE

Writer · France

About the Author

A quiet life, written slowly.

Zara Grace writes emotionally rich slow-burn romances where healing matters as much as love.

A lifelong reader, she finds beauty in quiet moments, unspoken emotions, and the fragile space between fear and trust. Her novels explore resilience, freedom, found family, and the transformative power of kindness.

She believes the greatest love stories are not built through grand gestures, but through patience, silence, and the courage to choose one another every day.

She lives in France with her family and never stops imagining new stories.

An old farmhouse porch at golden hour.

Behind Solstice

Where the story came from.

Solstice is not autobiographical. It was written, slowly, out of admiration — for survivors, for the women who quietly rebuild, for small Oregon-coast towns where the wind makes the houses lean. It was written for anyone who has ever been told to stay small, and chose to grow anyway.

  • Human resilience
  • Survivor stories
  • The Oregon coast
  • Quiet places
  • Small communities
  • Psychological healing
  • Slow burn romance
  • The natural world

Reading Playlist

Music for the slow burn.

The songs that played in the room while the books were written.30-second previews · tap a track to listen

  1. 01

    We Hug Now

    Sydney Rose · Indie · quiet ache

  2. 02

    Got Scared

    Kina Grannis · Acoustic · fragile

  3. 03

    Runaway

    AURORA · Vocal · escape

  4. 04

    Home

    Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros · Folk · belonging

  5. 05

    Lonely Island

    Amble · Irish folk · solitude

  6. 06

    Schoolyard Days

    Amble · Irish folk · memory

  7. 07

    Mary's Pub

    Amble · Irish folk · warmth

  8. 08

    I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free

    Nina Simone · Soul · freedom

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