New novel coming October 27, 2026 from Regal House Publishing!
Also available from Bookshop.org and Amazon.
ISBN-13: 978-1646037056 | Upmarket Fiction
What happens when you cross an anxiety-ridden decorator with a touch of hypochondria, a male cat named Margaret Thatcher, a box of mysterious love letters, and a remote island full of eccentrics, banjos, and broken hearts?
The result is Love and Other Incurable Ailments, an unexpected love story full of humor, heart, and just enough chaos to keep you hooked.
It started with a box of love letters…
Meet Serenity Tomczyk: 32, anxious, awkward, grieving and endearing. She’s spent years avoiding her parents’ deaths and the breakup that shattered her idea of love. When she finds a box of passionate letters in a dumpster behind her aunt’s home décor shop, she builds a fantasy around the man who wrote them. And then she chases that fantasy 900 miles from Michigan to Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, in search of a stranger named Birdy.
On Ocracoke, Serenity’s world unravels. Yet, somehow, through a broken arm, bad judgment, and unexpected friendships with an octogenarian, a neighbor, carpenter and a smart aleck 12-year-old, she finds what she didn’t know she was looking for. But when her imagined happy ending begins to unravel, she must decide if holding on—or letting go—is the bravest thing she can do.
Told with wit, heart, and irrepressible warmth, Love and Other Incurable Ailments is a story about connection, courage, and becoming yourself just when you thought it was too late. It’s a gentle, emotionally restorative novel about the quiet ways human connection helps us survive a fractured world.
Advance praise
Quirk personified, Serenity Tomczyk is single, health-anxiety disordered, and recently orphaned when she sees a red-haired woman throw a pile of love letters in a dumpster behind her slushy Michigan workplace strip mall. The return address: Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. Serenity falls in love with the letter-writer and does what many of us who grew up in the cold Midwest wish we could do—take the wild risk of moving to a remote island off the Carolina coast.
Funny, voice-driven, and heartbreaking, Love and Other Incurable Ailments speaks to the healing power of taking a leap of faith and finding a soft landing in the waves, sands, and salty air of true community.
–Heather Frese, author of The Baddest Girl on the Beach and The Saddest Girl on the Planet
“A heated love affair on a faraway island…” Who wouldn’t be intrigued? That’s the irresistible invitation in Love and Other Incurable Ailments. Meet Serenity. Anything but serene, she begins every chapter with a log entry estimating her ‘chances of survival.’ An accidental discovery takes her on a trip, in search of love, in search of herself. Fortunately for the reader, her destination is Ocracoke Island in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. In a lovingly evoked setting, Serenity re-starts her life.
There’s a large cast of colorful characters and plenty of trouble. Looking at the little cottage she’ll buy, she’s told, ‘There’s a fix for everything.’ And there is, for cottages, for ailments, and for broken hearts.
–Rick Bailey, author of Drop & Add
When Serenity Tomczyk hauls a mysterious package out of a dumpster, you know things are about to get messy—in the best possible way. Equal parts ballsy and fainthearted, Serenity is a character you can’t help but root for. A smart, satisfying story about reinvention, resilience, and the beauty of beginning again.
–Kristin Bair, author of Clementine Crane Prefers Not To
A deeply emotional novel that skillfully intertwines personal transformation and romantic mystery. Sienkiewicz avoids the clichés of formulaic romance, instead offering a nuanced exploration of healing, vulnerability, and the surprising ways love can surface later in life. It’s a book that doesn’t just entertain—it lingers.
–Suzie Housley for Midwest Book Review
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