Out of Time
“An uplifting reminder that one may find love at any age.”
Life has a time limit. Love doesn’t.
What if your greatest love story was just beginning at 78?
Maddie Cole has spent seven decades proving that breaking the rules pays off. A trailblazing engineer who chose career over convention, she's never regretted trading romance for professional triumph... until now.
When a family weekend in Bar Harbor extends unexpectedly, Maddie finds herself alone at the Hope Point Lighthouse B&B with Nate Jacobs—an 80-year-old widower who's lived his entire life by the book. Everything about him should clash with her rebellious spirit. Instead, their breakfast conversations and moonlit walks awaken something she thought she'd left behind forever.
But as their connection deepens, both must confront a startling truth: they've been crossing paths for decades without ever truly meeting. Now, with limited time ahead and unlimited possibility between them, they face the ultimate question:
Is this the perfect time in their lives to meet—or are they out of time to realize the full potential of their relationship?
Out of Time
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Out of Time
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If you need questions to get the discussion started - here they are:
Out of Time FAQs
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Maddie Cole, a retired engineer in her seventies, and Nate Jacobs, the owner of a lighthouse bed and breakfast in Bar Harbor, Maine, form an unexpected connection during what was meant to be a short family visit. As their friendship deepens, they discover their lives have crossed paths for decades without either of them realizing it.
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Maddie is 78 and Nate is 83. Out of Time is the first book in the series and centers on the question of whether it’s too late for a meaningful new relationship later in life.
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It’s the first book in the Maddie & Nate series, and it works perfectly as a standalone. The two books that follow, Next Time and Our Time, revisit the same two people at earlier stages of life in different timelines, but Out of Time doesn’t require any of that context.
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Yes, Out of Time was my first novel, published in April 2022.
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It won four 2025 International Firebird Book Awards (Best Unconventional Love Story, Most Heartwarming, Foodie Romance, and Most Likely to Inspire a Sequel), was a finalist for the 2025 American Writing Awards in Women’s Fiction, and received a Top Pick from Author Shout Awards and an Honorable Mention from the New England Book Festival, along with first place finishes in the 2026 BookFest awards.
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Food plays a big role throughout the book, from breakfasts at the B&B to meals out in Bar Harbor, and every recipe that appears is one I’ve actually made myself.
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Yes, there are open-door sex scenes in this book. Compared to Next Time, which deals more directly with infidelity and moral complexity, Out of Time is a gentler read overall, though it doesn’t shy away from intimacy between its two main characters.
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I’d say yes. Reviewers and readers have described it as more literary fiction with a love story at its center than a conventional romance, and it’s drawn readers who came for the themes of aging, second chances, and connection rather than the romance genre itself.
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I’ll just say that hope is the through-line of the whole series, including this book.
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A discussion guide for Out of Time is available on my website. Scroll up and there’s button to download it!