In 1971, four friends are ready to take on the world when their confidence is abruptly shattered by unforeseen repercussions from a single event in grammar school. For the next two years, their friendships are tested and their lives are shaken when one of them mysteriously disappears. The four have come a long way while staying in the same place, the small West Virginia town of Loganville, where their lives revolve around their families and each other. They are young adults dealing with loyalty, the weight of family history, the inheritance of social prejudice, personal grief, independence, and inevitably the lure of romance and their freedom of choice in matters of the heart.
Jackson Sullivan Logan, the fifth generation of Logans living in Loganville, is the only son of one of the wealthiest families in the state. He is completing a distinguished college education in near-by Charleston. Jack is prepared to take his pre-ordained place as CEO of the sprawling Logan Family Corporation. Coal mining was the first but not the only division of the company that had been set up by his grandfather, before Jack's father was born. The Corporation's by-laws decree that the first legally born son of the firstborn son must take the responsibility of the CEO for generations going forward. Jack's mother has her own agenda regarding aspects of her three children's lives, especially her son's, including who he dates.
Jack's twin sisters, Jessica and Jennifer, are following in his footsteps academically, just two years behind. Their future contributions to the family business, if any, are still undefined. Jess and Jack have always been particularly close, often to the exclusion of Jen. Where you found Jack, you would find Jess-and usually Danny. Jess is the lynchpin that holds the four friends together despite her mother's disdain for her loyalty to them. Unlike her mother, Jess doesn't care about her "place in society." She does care about her friends.
Jess is especially fond of Danny Sheppard whose hallmark characteristics are common sense, humor, and dependability. Jack, Danny, and Jess have considered themselves "the three musketeers" since grammar school, one for all and all for one. Comfortable with his natural abilities, Danny recognized early on that college wasn't in his genes and continuously worked hands-on in his family's successful retail business. Located in the heart of town it is part of its citizen's daily lives so Danny knows just about everyone in Loganville. He will take over management when his father retires. Until then, he has dreams about how he can enhance and expand the store's services in the future.
Katelyn Harris has been Jessica's best friend since grammar school. Her father works for the Logan Family Corporation and she is the new secretary for David Logan, Jess's uncle and head of the mining division of the company. Just five feet tall, she can match Danny's sense of humor and mirror Jess's loyalty. She is an organized secretary and a skilled typist. Katie was valedictorian of her high school class but brains are not the first thing anyone notices about her. She is a striking mixed Cherokee and Caucasian beauty. But for some, the only thing that matters is that she is from "the wrong side of town."
Jack, Jess, Danny, and Katie initially meet their individual challenges with varying degrees of success, but with consistent devotion to each other, they eventually succeed in overcoming them and solving the heartbreaking mystery that confronts them all. When A Heart Finds Love is the first volume in the Logan Family Saga which follows the lives of the Logan men, and the women they marry, through several generations.
