Get to know the residents who live and love in the small coastal community of Dog Cove, Florida!While most tourists head out the causeway to the barrier island beaches, tucked back off the beaten path is a close-knit, Old Florida neighborhood wrapped around a saltwater cove with its share of small businesses and eccentric locals.O'Connor's Dog Cove Marina, Periwinkle Bed & Breakfast, Salty Dog Craft Brewery, MerMaid Yoga, Sunset Palms Senior Village, Wooftopia Doggie Daycare, and Paradise Found RV Resort may be small compared to the area's big tourist attractions, but true love, laughter and happily ever after are always waiting to be found here.

The Dog Cove Chronicles will be out starting in early Summer 2024!❤️ Go With the Flow (pub. 6/21)
❤️ Drawn Together (pub. 9/3)
❤️ Off the Deep End (est. 11/17)
❤️ Room for Love (est. 2/14)
❤️ Puppy Love in Paradise
❤️ Old Dogs, New Tricks

"You don’t choose your relatives – that’s just who the gene pool lottery sticks you with. Friends are those you choose to spend your 'stuff in common' time with. Family are those you choose to let yourself bond hearts with – for no needed logical reason other than you didn’t know how hard it was to breathe without them before. Just trust your soul to know better than your brain, boy."
- Clay O'Connor

Go With the Flow is Book 1 of the Dog Cove Chronicles, featuring sweet, clean romance found in a small, close-knit saltwater community where “family” is more about bonds of friendship and people who stand by you than genetics.Dylan’s childhood might have led him down a very different path had he not been taken under the wing of the marina’s owner who told him he called dibs when he learned the young teen’s birth certificate listed his father as unknown.A Vietnam veteran with no children of his own, Clay always proudly introduced Dylan as his son and taught the quiet and grateful young man a lot before he died. Clay’s nephew Ed lost his own son at 9 years old, and with no desire to remarry has been grooming Dylan to take over the family’s century-old marina per his parents’ and uncle’s wishes.Ed’s mother’s matchmaking plans for this godsend to their family who helped them heal from their loss finds the perfect match for super shy Dylan to carry on their family legacy when her high-achieving granddaughter Kelly walks away from her advertising career up north to join the family business.She’d never been afraid of a challenge, but was torn between being mortified on one side since Dylan was someone she would still have no choice but to work with, and just playing along with it to call Gram’s bluff.She did inherit her family’s crazy sense of humor, after all.Maybe her grandmother knows best, and if the two let go of their pasts and just go with the flow on Gram’s little betrothal plan, they could create their own fairy tale future here together in Dog Cove?Tropes: Found family, Healing from loss, Small Town, Cinderella, Love at first sight, Midlife decisions, & Pets are family, too!

"Go With the Flow" published June 21, 2024!

Go With the Flow is Dylan & Kelly’s story of realizing their past is in the past and they get to decide what’s most important in their lives now, including whether to go along with her grandmother’s little matchmaking plan, for creating their own fairy tale future together.

"A wise man once told me we feel emotions because we’re human. It’s when we pretend we don’t feel them is what gets us in trouble."
- Dylan O'Connor

Drawn Together is Book 2 of the Dog Cove Chronicles and continues the small town saga of a close-knit saltwater community and its family-owned businesses. This sweet and clean romance series sees more coming of age, realization that change is a choice, and that one's future is what we choose to make it - including who we want to spend it with.Love is in the summer air at Dog Cove!Bunny and Jake have had crushes on each other all through their school days, but super-shy Jake always got tongue-tied around her. He bravely wrote her a love note for Valentine's Day in 3rd Grade telling her he wanted to marry her when they grew up. He wasn't brave enough to actually give it to her until they were in 4th Grade. Once he began bartending at his family's brewery, he warmed up to 'people-ing' and got a lot better, but still hadn't taken the next step to actually ask her out.When the elderly couple next door to the Cliftons decide to move to the midwest to spend more time with their own kids and grandchildren, they tell Jake he is the only one they'll even consider selling their marital home to. These surrogate grandparents of Jake's give him the push he needs in matters of the heart, and after years of wishful thinking, Jake is finally brave enough to tell Bunny how he feels - no matter what her overprotective twin brother has to say about it.At the marina, Dylan has been taking over more of the management from Ed with the support of Kelly, whose skillsets perfectly complement his own. For someone who took a long time to come out of his own shell, Dylan is actually enjoying talking with their boaters and owning the role he was groomed for. When Kelly's parents fly in to celebrate Gram and Pop's 58th wedding anniversary, Dylan hopes to make a good impression on her father so he and Kelly can take the next step in their own relationship.Ed is taking better care of his mental and physical health, as well as taking his 'lady friend' Kate up on her offer for him to come for breakfast at her mother's B&B where she's cooking every morning anyway. Besides facing issues he had repressed for too long, Ed is hopeful his lifestyle changes will let him be around a long time yet to see the grandbabies his parents told Dylan they are waiting for - and even maybe getting closer to Kate.Tropes: Sweet romance, Small town, Embracing change, Found family, Healing from loss, Coming of age, Midlife pivots, Pets are family, too.

"Drawn Together" published Sept. 3, 2024!

Drawn Together is Jake & Bunny's story of realizing it's not too late for creating their own future together.

After 4 decades as a creative program director, professional volunteer manager, animal Reiki practitioner, and loss & grief counsellor, I have been blessed to watch many real-life transformations around me:• from both children and rescued pets overcoming shyness and blossoming after difficult beginnings,• to widows redefining themselves and healing from grief by tapping into their deepest dreams and finally pursuing them as a way to honor their lost loved ones,• and lots of light-hearted beauty of real-life comedies and things I cannot un-see throughout my career.Originally from the Northeastern U.S., I hate being cold and thus moved to Florida years ago. Toting my mother and all our dogs, cats and a pair of Japanese Bantams, we drove south into the Sunshine State like a Yankee version of the Clampetts, minus the rocking chair on the car roof. Because that was in the POD.When not drawing pet memorial portraits to help animal lovers heal from loss or spending time holding space for veterans and the elderly, you'll probably find me snuggling and spoiling my pets while writing happily ever after stories filled with eccentric yet resilient characters - because that is absolutely how I love spending the bulk of my day.I still draw pet portraits under Big Black Dog Studio, still write silly Middle School humor under pen name S.Knotz, and am happy to begin publishing stories of love and resilience under my sweet romance pen name of Suzy Ryan Knotz. ❤️

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Above: Me with sun setting over my shoulder at the beach.
Below: View from back of our boat heading home to dock after a beautiful sunset taken by me.

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