Esme Nash has spent the past sev­en years of her life frozen in time. After a cat­a­stroph­ic event the day of her col­lege grad­u­a­tion, Esme has been stuck as care­giv­er for her father in her home­town, all the while mourn­ing the loss of her moth­er. Once des­tined to move to Man­hat­tan with her col­lege boyfriend and pur­sue her dream career in an art gallery, Esme is now head­ed to New York for a month-long stint as a dog-sit­ter — all thanks to the bid­dings of a stranger.

When she arrives in New York City, she meets Elvis and dis­cov­ers that his own­er, Cather­ine, has a shoe obses­sion to rival her own (only that Cather­ine can actu­al­ly afford them). Slip­ping into a new pair of shoes each day, Esme real­izes that step­ping out into the world opens her to new oppor­tu­ni­ties and the poten­tial for a new life.

This ​“what if” romance is full of twists and turns, with a deeply devel­oped cast of char­ac­ters: Esme, a dream­er recov­er­ing from dev­as­ta­tion; Zach, a bar­tender with a mys­te­ri­ous past; Liam, a boyfriend she was sup­posed to have a future with; and Sy, a retired her­ring shop own­er with a heart­break­ing love sto­ry of his own. A true gem of a sto­ry, with beau­ti­ful­ly incor­po­rat­ed pieces of Judaism and Jew­ish her­itage, A Shoe Sto­ry is the per­fect read for any­one who has expe­ri­enced love and loss or won­dered what could have been.