Beach-ready rom-coms that survive sunscreen, sand, and all the feelings.

Millie Williams’s summer survival list is simple: rescue her family’s lakeside cabin from its one-star-review spiral, evict her freeloading ex from her couch, and avoid Blake Martin—the laid-back guitarist who broke her heart a decade ago.

But when a deflating pizza-slice floatie leaves her stranded in the middle of Willow Lake, it’s Blake who comes to the rescue. Now a school principal and the steady anchor for his widowed sister and her kids, he’s grounded, dependable, and still annoyingly attractive.

As summer settles in, old bonds tighten and long-buried sparks reignite. But when a betrayal threatens the one place Millie has never been ready to let go of, she must decide whether clinging to the past is worth losing what could finally feel like home.

Sam Bennett has spent her career writing listicles about places she’s only dreamed of. When a last-minute cancellation at an exclusive Kauai wellness retreat becomes Travl’s only way into the island’s most coveted resort, she volunteers for the assignment that could finally launch her career. The only problem: the retreat is for couples only. Which is how Sam ends up fake dating Wes Parks—Travl’s golden boy, chronic performer, and the last person she would willingly share a room with in paradise.

What they don’t realize until they arrive is that the retreat isn’t a romantic getaway. It’s an intensive program for relationships actively falling apart, complete with trust exercises, attachment workshops, and a life coach determined to dismantle every emotional defense they have. All Sam has to do is survive seven days, get the footage, and deliver the assignment. But the longer she and Wes pretend to be a couple trying to save their relationship, the more impossible it becomes to deny how real it feels. And maybe the question isn’t whether they survive the island, but whether anything between them survives what comes after.