The Castaway

A President dies under mysterious circumstances, leaving a secret mistress and their twelve-year-old son…and also a loyal First Lady who has no idea what went wrong with their marriage.

Forty-nine-year old widow Ruby Hudson, the former First Lady of the United States, needs a fresh start. As she mourns the loss of her husband, she turns her love of books into a whole new career, opening a little bookshop on a charming, pirate-themed island called Shipwreck Key just off the coast of the Florida Panhandle. Her two daughters think she’s crazy, but Ruby can finally breathe again knowing that she'll never have to deal with the constant scrutiny and pressure that come with a high-profile life in the White House.

Just as she’s beginning to feel at home on Shipwreck Key, Ruby receives a visit from her husband’s former Chief of Staff: a tell-all biography about her husband’s presidency—and about their marriage—is in the works, and the author is none other than Dexter North, a young, hot, serious journalist with another scandalous book about a different President’s misdeeds already on the bestseller lists. Ruby worries that the book will destroy her husband’s legacy—not to mention her life—and she realizes that the only way to control the narrative is to cooperate with Dexter North.

Then, without warning, the President’s mistress shows up on the island with their son. Ruby doesn’t want to meet or talk to this woman, and when her late husband’s lover gives her a mysterious letter that he wrote for Ruby before his death, she's conflicted: open it and possibly find out what he had to say to her, or ignore it and live the rest of her life not knowing what was going on in his mind?

Can Ruby use the information in the letter to find the closure she so desperately needs, or will the President's betrayals haunt her for the rest of her life? Can a former First Lady ever really have a second act?