"Not just a flavour, but a way of life." When seventeen-year-old Flo Kennedy is forced to up sticks and trade her life in London for a sleepy seaside town on the south coast, she's anything but excited. Walden-on-Sea could win awards for being Britain's dullest town, and with a population consisting almost entirely of over sixties, teenagers are an endangered species. Silently struggling with her parents' death and separation from her sister, Flo's convinced she's in for the worst summer of her life. But when she meets the guy in the ice cream shop, things start to change. It's not long before she lands herself a job, a new set of friends and maybe even the beginnings of first romance. For the first time in several years, she's happy. But Flo knows all too well that things can't stay perfect forever, and after all, being on top of the world only gives you further to fall.

Emma Jacobs is like any other Californian girl who is only trying to survive high school. She’s happy with her group of friends, her brother and his wife, Caroline, and her secret talent. Emma can sing, and every Friday, she does just that. However, Emma is too shy to sing in front of anybody that may recognize her from school, so she drives to the next town over and performs every Friday at The Seaside Café. Emma is happy with her double life until there’s a bump in the road and her two lives begin to overlap just because of one boy who just so happens to work at the café. How will Emma keep her secret when the whole thing depends on Jace Parker, the school loner. And how can she keep the secrets of her demented past in the past if he is determined to pry into her history? Surely, all of her problems come back to The Seaside Café.