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The End of the Road: A Hatteras Doctor Novel
At fifty-eight, retired Navy trauma surgeon Frankie Vane came to the very end of Hatteras Island for one so that nobody would ever need her again.
She lasted six weeks.
Then a neighbor pounds on her door — the island's only doctor has collapsed on his kitchen floor — and before the ambulance can cross the flooding road, his life is under Frankie's two bare hands. Days later she saves a bleeding boy in a parking lot with a belt and her fist. By the end of the week the old clinic's keys are sitting on her table, the whole island is calling her Doc, and a storm is spinning up the coast toward a place with one road, one bridge, and no hospital for an hour in good weather.
Frankie has spent thirty years being the steadiest hands in every room she walked into. What she has never once managed to be is present — not for the marriage that quietly died, and not for the daughter who woke from surgery twenty years ago to find her mother eight thousand miles away, and never fully forgave her.
Now the island wants to keep her. A patient, grave, widowed colonel — thirteen years younger, and not the least bit sorry about it — is looking at her the way no one has in years. A fierce island girl wants Frankie to teach her everything. And out past the last bridge, a nor'easter is about to cut Hatteras off from the world on the worst possible night — and hand Frankie the one thing she never believed she'd a second chance at the moment that broke her.
She came to the end of the road to stop being needed.
The island had other plans.
The first book in a warm, big-hearted new series about second acts, found family, and the courage it takes to stop running and stay. For readers of Virgin River, Sweet Magnolias, and every story where a small town saves the person who came to save it.
Clean, closed-door, and impossible to put down.
She lasted six weeks.
Then a neighbor pounds on her door — the island's only doctor has collapsed on his kitchen floor — and before the ambulance can cross the flooding road, his life is under Frankie's two bare hands. Days later she saves a bleeding boy in a parking lot with a belt and her fist. By the end of the week the old clinic's keys are sitting on her table, the whole island is calling her Doc, and a storm is spinning up the coast toward a place with one road, one bridge, and no hospital for an hour in good weather.
Frankie has spent thirty years being the steadiest hands in every room she walked into. What she has never once managed to be is present — not for the marriage that quietly died, and not for the daughter who woke from surgery twenty years ago to find her mother eight thousand miles away, and never fully forgave her.
Now the island wants to keep her. A patient, grave, widowed colonel — thirteen years younger, and not the least bit sorry about it — is looking at her the way no one has in years. A fierce island girl wants Frankie to teach her everything. And out past the last bridge, a nor'easter is about to cut Hatteras off from the world on the worst possible night — and hand Frankie the one thing she never believed she'd a second chance at the moment that broke her.
She came to the end of the road to stop being needed.
The island had other plans.
The first book in a warm, big-hearted new series about second acts, found family, and the courage it takes to stop running and stay. For readers of Virgin River, Sweet Magnolias, and every story where a small town saves the person who came to save it.
Clean, closed-door, and impossible to put down.
180 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 5, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 18, 2026
Almost very good. There were a few things that just didn't work for me, and spoiled the story. I started out enjoying it, but the way it's written, by an overseeing narrator instead of by the main character made it one star less. Then a few inconsistent things really bugged me. Won't list them, because they could be spoilers, but enough to put me off this book.
October 1, 2026
I I will read anything Sue Long writes. She makes you feel you have sand in your sboes
Sue long writes OBX stories that bring to life the people that stay. The rest of us Summer People always leave, wishing we could stay. Wondering what their stories are. She Long gives us windows into their world.
Sue long writes OBX stories that bring to life the people that stay. The rest of us Summer People always leave, wishing we could stay. Wondering what their stories are. She Long gives us windows into their world.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews