At 38, Navy Captain Joel Layton walks away from the only life he has ever known. With no family waiting and nowhere that truly feels like home, he heads north to the rugged Port of Aleutia, Alaska. He signs on as a deckhand aboard the Alexandria, a deep-sea king crab fishing vessel in the brutal waters of the Bering Sea.
He expects freezing nights, punishing storms, and backbreaking work.
He does not expect Portia.
She runs the dockside bar where the fishing crews gather after long nights at sea. When the lights dim and the disco ball spins, she steps onto the stage in leather and thigh-high boots, electric guitar in hand. Confident. Magnetic. Impossible to ignore.
Portia writes her own rock-and-roll-meets-country songs and sings them with a smoky edge that commands the room. But beneath the fire and fierce independence is a woman guarding her own scars.
The moment Joel sees her, he cannot look away.
Under the Northern Lights, stolen glances turn into late-night confessions and wild Alaskan adventures. What begins as heat grows into something steady. Something real. Something neither of them planned.
But the Bering Sea is unforgiving.
When a violent storm slams into the Alexandria during Joel's first crabbing season, calm waters turn deadly. As the ocean rages and the vessel fights to survive, one question cuts through the chaos:
Will he make it back to Portia?
Loving a Sailor is a slow-burn, small-town Alaska romance about a retired military hero, a fierce rock-star heroine, found family, high-stakes survival, and a hard-won fresh start beneath the Northern Lights.
