Jo Marie Rose opens the Rose Harbor Inn bed and breakfast in Cedar Cove in order to start a new life, but the inn and its first guests bring surprises into Jo's life.

Thirty-eight-year-old widow Anne Marie Roche, the owner of a successful Seattle bookstore, creates a list of twenty wishes, and, while acting upon her wishes, encounters an eight-year-old girl named Ellen who helps her complete her list--with unexpected results.

Jamie Warren asks her best friend Rich Manning to father the child she so desperately wants, which leads to unexpected romance, and Paul Manning, a grieving widower with small children, finds comfort in the arms of Leah Baker.