Spotlight & Giveaway: Five Summers from Now by Michelle Dayton

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Michelle Dayton’s new release: Five Summers from Now

Perfect for fans of heartfelt second-chance romance, emotional time-slip stories, and love that refuses to fade.

They were supposed to spend the Fourth of July weekend with their closest friends—fireworks, laughter, traditions. Instead, Merritt Sullivan and Ben Samuels broke up on the drive to the lake, before the first spark lit the sky.

But after a strange accident on the dock, they wake up to find that everything’s changed. It’s five years later. They’re no longer a couple. Their friends’ lives have shifted in ways they never saw coming. Careers, relationships, even loyalties have rearranged—some for the better, some painfully worse. And neither of them remembers the years in between.

Forced to navigate a future they don’t recall, Merritt and Ben must work together to understand what fractured not only their relationship, but their entire friend group. The only way back—if going back is even possible—is to face the heartbreak they once tried to outrun.

As old feelings resurface and new truths come to light, they’ll have to decide: is the future worth keeping…or worth rewriting?

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from Five Summers from Now 

Chapter One

Merritt

Wednesday, July 1, 2026

In the movies, when a main character is fatally shot, they don’t die instantly. They collapse to the ground with bloody hands futilely clasping the wound. They sputter hysterical nonsense or whisper dying declarations to their loved ones. Blood seeps from their mouths. The extras in the scene make a big show of calling for an ambulance—but everyone knows it’s too late. The main character is already dead, even if their heart hasn’t quite stopped beating.

Last night, home alone, I’d watched a mindless action movie with a scene just like this. All I could think about was how that main character’s death was a perfect analogy for my relationship with Ben.

We’ve been dead for a month.

The “gunshot” was our fight at the beginning of June. Since then, we’ve just been ignoring the fatal injury while it bleeds out, waiting for one of us to work past denial and bargaining to verbally and officially end things.

And right now? When he flipped on the blinker, I knew it was time.

I had to break up with him.

The entrance to the highway was still two blocks ahead, but Ben flipped the signal for a right-hand turn anyway. Why? For God’s sake, there were at least four alleyways and a couple of small side streets before the road that led to the highway. With the blinker going, anyone behind us might be justifiably confused and think we intended to turn into one of those places.

Tick, tick, tick. The blinker was somehow louder in my head than the Ariana Grande song playing on the radio.

Tick, tick, tick. Ben’s hands were relaxed on the wheel. My own were white-knuckled and clenched into fists in my lap.

Tick, tick, tick. We were nowhere-freakin’-near the turn yet. I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at his serene face. Was he doing this on purpose just to bother me?

He hummed a note, sang a few words of the chorus, perfectly in harmony. Ben didn’t care a whit about singing, and yet he was really good at it. Like most things in life.

The traffic in front of us finally began to move, and three full minutes after he’d flipped the turn signal, we coasted along the highway access road.

Or, more accurately, we coasted for ten feet before settling into a sea of cars, their red brake lights flashing. Although the Edens Expressway would become even more crowded later in the week, right now it was still jammed with travelers fleeing the city to get a jump start on the long Fourth of July weekend.

When Reagan sent out this year’s official Firework Five invitation, Ben and I had disagreed about when to drive up to her family’s Wisconsin lake cabin. I’d wanted to leave this past Sunday and enjoy a full week of vacation. Ben wouldn’t hear of it. He’d wanted the opposite, to shorten the annual trip and spend only a couple of days away from Chicago.

We’d gone through the motions of an argument—we each presented our case, we asked questions about the other’s point of view, and then we settled on a compromise that made no one happy.

We fell back on tradition. The Firework Five event, as originally conceived and faithfully executed over the past couple of years, typically started on July 1 with the group’s arrival at the cabin and concluded on July 5.

Firework Five. Yeah, it was a cheesy name. But there were five of us and we got together over the Fourth. Sometimes cheesy just worked.

“Fine,” Ben had agreed to the normal length of the trip. “But we need to leave really, really early on the fifth so I can get back to prepare for my fundraising event that night.”

“Fine,” I’d snapped in response. Because who didn’t want to get up at the ass crack of dawn after a late night of celebrating and watching fireworks?

Ben sang along with Ariana for another verse, and I just. Could. Not. Stand. It. He knew I hated this song. In days past, he would have switched the radio channel immediately when something I didn’t like came on. He wouldn’t have celebrated by adding a two-part harmony.

So, I rolled down the window. The wind from the highway drowned out the music entirely. Ben gave one of his annoyed little huffs. In the side mirror, I caught a satisfied smirk on my lips. Kind of unexpected. I hadn’t seen myself wearing anything resembling a smile in a long time.

I flattened the expression. There, now I looked normal again. Irritated, stressed, distinctly unpleasant. How depressing was that? That my normal appearance was tired and downright pissy. The kind of woman you’d definitely avoid in an office or any sort of social gathering.

When exactly had this become my daily vibe?

I was never the kind of girl who smiled so big you could see both rows of teeth, but I knew for a fact that “disgruntled” was not my resting facial expression a few years ago.

It was Ben’s fault.

“Would you mind rolling the window back up?” he asked, his voice ultra-calm and modulated. He could be speaking to a stranger. “It’s too hot and noisy to have it open on the highway.”

Since when? I wanted to scream at him. Three years ago we’d driven up to Reagan’s in my old Jeep, which hadn’t had working air-conditioning for a decade. On that ride to Wisconsin, we’d talked nonstop, sweating and windblown, except when I’d cuddle up for a quick kiss.

But those times were long gone.

I should have broken up with him last weekend. The weather on Sunday had been absolutely beautiful. I’d wanted to spend as much time as possible outside, meeting friends at a street festival or walking along the lakefront or even just reading a book in a park.

Ben had also wanted to spend time outdoors. But he’d wanted us to canvass a few neighborhoods, pop into various small businesses—great photo ops to show his focus on jobs and the economy—and finish the afternoon at the outside patio of a trendy restaurant downtown, rehashing all of his image consultant’s latest feedback.

Now, I slid the window up as slowly as humanly possible, inch by inch, savoring the accompanying muscle tic in his tight jaw.

If I’d broken up with him on Sunday, I would be at the cabin already. Reagan was currently single. We could have taken a boat and a bottle of rosé out on the lake. We could be raising glasses right now, toasting each other and celebrating freedom—the country’s and our own.

After twenty miles of stop-and-go traffic, the highway finally opened up. Before long, we passed Six Flags Great America and the Gurnee Mills Outlet mall. Ben and I didn’t speak at all. As we approached the state line, the Wisconsin-shaped sign welcomed us to the Dairy State. We’d exit in Kenosha, and it’d only be another forty-five minutes until we got to the cabin and lake.

In spite of our silent, tension-filled ride, my shoulders relaxed as we got off the expressway. I loved Chicago; it was undoubtedly home. But spending time at the lake was always a balm. A truly precious week within the year.

Farmland stretched for miles on either side of the road. We were less than two hours from the city, but everything was quiet, and the air smelled different. I couldn’t wait to get out of the car and walk around. Feel soft grass beneath my feet, inhale the scent of earth, even the faintest hint of manure.

I was tired of the hard sidewalks of downtown, breathing in smog or some random dude’s weed. Tired of our apartment, once so full of conversation and laughter, now hushed and full only of the echoes of that ruinous June conversation. Tired of the worry plaguing me about—

Ben suddenly pulled off the highway, bringing us to a complete stop along the side of the road. He plucked the keys from the ignition and jangled them in his lap.

“What’s wrong?” I blinked at him. “Do we have a flat?”

Two years ago, we’d had to pull over near here after I’d driven over a nail. The cop who found us had been so friendly, we’d invited him to come for a beer at Reagan’s.

“No flat,” Ben said, staring down at his keys. “The car’s fine.”

“Then what are we doing?” The irritation in my voice snapped through the air like a whip, and Ben winced. He winced at me a lot lately.

“Merritt.” Ben looked up to stare at me fully in the eyes. I couldn’t even remember the last time we’d had sustained eye contact.

Holy shit. He’s going to do it. I was sure I was going to have to do it.

Ben hadn’t surprised me in a long time—in a good way, at least—but I was surprised now. Relieved. Maybe even a little impressed.

“I think we need to break up.”

Ben

The words felt strange coming out of my mouth, even though I’d been planning to say them for seventy miles. Well, seventy miles and four weeks.

Merritt and I were still staring at each other. Looking into one another’s eyes for the first time in ages. Her face was slack, but I knew it wasn’t surprise about the breakup itself. It was surprise that I was the one saying the words first.

Was she mad I was pulling the trigger? It wasn’t like I hadn’t given her plenty of opportunities to end things. Last weekend, for example, I’d dismissed her ideas on how to spend a sunny Sunday in favor of campaign-related activities, because I knew she’d be enraged. But instead of ending things on the spot, she’d spent the evening in stony silence in front of the TV.

Hell, just an hour ago, I’d even done the thing with the blinker that I knew made her nuts, wondering if that might finally make her erupt.

In a figurative sense only, of course. Merritt didn’t really erupt anymore. Her anger was palpable, seething—but these days it was always cold. Frost instead of flame.

Anyway, we were at the end of us, and we both knew it.

So, I’d pulled over and said the words that had practically been hanging over our heads in a little word bubble for weeks. I just couldn’t allow us to arrive at the cabin and . . . what? Spend five days pretending that everything was normal in front of Ty, Reagan, and Lola? Or worse, break up right in front of our friends? I already felt terrible about the timing. We all looked forward to Firework Five, and now Merritt and I were going to ruin it for everyone.

Merritt nodded slowly. “I think so too.” Her tone of voice was almost unfamiliar. No irritation, no derision, no exasperation. For the first time in ages, she sounded warm.

A beat. What else should I say? Were two sentences enough to annihilate a three-year relationship?

I cleared my throat. “Neither of us has been happy lately.”

She nodded. “That’s true.”

Jesus, they should put us in the Guinness Book of World Records for the world’s shortest breakup. No raised voices and no tears. No discussion on why, or on regrets, or on how we got here. No muss, no fuss.

Merritt shifted in her seat and turned to focus on the road. “Should we just announce it to the others as soon as we get there?”

I put the keys back in the ignition, started the car, and steered us off the shoulder. “How about if we wait until everyone’s arrived and tell them all together?”

She nodded immediately. I was struck by how weird it felt to be on the same page. We hadn’t been on the same page or in the same book—hell, even in the same library—for longer than I could remember. “That’s a good idea.”

We headed west toward Geneva Lake, driving in silence once again. It was different now, though. It wasn’t the black-cloud silence that choked me as we left the city. That silence had been chock-full of all the things we no longer talked about, the slights and injuries we’d perpetrated on one another these last several months, and a vague, undefined dread.

But this silence was just . . . silence. I inhaled a huge lungful of air, held it, and blew it out slowly. God, that felt good. So good I repeated it, audibly.

Merritt glanced my way. “I know how you feel. Like you can breathe again, right?”

“Right.” Were we actually having an unfraught conversation? I could barely remember what that felt like. Strange that this one was about how we’d apparently been suffocating each other, but okay. Still felt nice for her to agree with me about anything.

We drove toward the setting sun, and I squinted to see the road, my mind on our announcement to our friends and how they would take the news.

Reagan and Lola were Merritt’s closest friends. She’d known them since they were teenagers. Like Merritt, Reagan grew up in Chicago, and they met in high school. Reagan and Lola were more like sisters, as they’d known each other since early childhood. Reagan’s family spent whole summers at their cabin, and Lola was a local from one of the small towns on the lake.

At our first Firework Five, Merritt had told me that best-friendships of three could be tricky for young girls, as there was usually the tendency for someone to be left out. “Not us, though,” she’d laughed.

“Nope,” Lola agreed. “We adopted you, straightaway.”

“Was it adoption as much as kidnapping?” Reagan drawled in her typical sardonic way.

Merritt nodded sagely. “I was definitely brought into this friendship by force.”

Lola blew her a kiss. “Sorry, not sorry.”

Even as close as they were, I’d be surprised if Merritt had already told them we’d been having problems. She was fiercely loyal to Reagan and Lola, but she was such a private individual, rarely admitting to weakness or needing help. It was something the three of them had in common.

Not that I could talk. Ty had been my closest friend since the beginning of college, and I hadn’t told him that things with Merritt were falling apart, even though he and I hung out all the time.

Maybe I hadn’t said anything to him because Ty and Reagan had hooked up a couple of times in the past. Twice, they’d ended up in bed together at the end of a night out when they were both single, and the second time was only a few months ago. Maybe that was why I hadn’t confided in Ty when things started to go south with Merritt. I didn’t want him to mention something to Reagan if Merritt hadn’t said anything yet. It didn’t seem right.

Or maybe, I didn’t tell Ty was because telling anyone would make it real.

Ty, I supposed, would be shocked and worried about me. He thought that Merritt and I were in it for the long haul. I’d always told him so.

Reagan’s gut reaction would be anger—she’d probably order me out of the cabin, assuming I’d hurt Merritt in some way.

Lola would probably take our breakup news the easiest, as she was openly doubtful about monogamy, marriage, and the viability of long-term relationships. Merritt and I would just be confirming her worldview. Although, she might worry that the end of us would spell the end of Firework Five.

It probably would. I had no idea how Merritt and I would be as exes. Would we really both still come up here every year for a week if we were no longer in each other’s daily lives? Doubtful.

Now that it was sinking in, I realized I wouldn’t even stay this year after we told our friends about the breakup. I glanced at my gas gauge, grateful for the half-full tank since I’d be hitting this road in the opposite direction tonight.

We passed a roadside taco stand that always served as a key landmark on the road trip. The cabin was less than a mile away.

Merritt straightened and squared her shoulders. “Almost there.”

Excerpt. ©Michelle Dayton. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 

Giveaway: An ebook copy of FIVE SUMMERS FROM NOW + one additional Tule ebook of the winner’s choice

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Meet the Author:

There are only three things Michelle Dayton loves more than sexy and suspenseful novels: her family, the city of Chicago, and Mr. Darcy. Michelle dreams of a year of world travel — as long as the trip would include weeks and weeks of beach time. As a bourbon lover and unabashed wine snob, Michelle thinks heaven is discussing a good book over an adult beverage.

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