Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of the death of a child.

Ella MacKenzie is one of the narrators and protagonists of the book. She is a single mother to twins Colt and Maisie and runs Solitude, a bed and breakfast once owned by her grandmother, nestled in Telluride, Colorado. Ella had her twins the year after high school, having married their father, Jeff, right after graduation. However, Jeff walked out on Ella once he discovered she was pregnant, and Ella was left to raise the children on her own; she took over Solitude a year later upon her grandmother’s death.

Ella is a tough, resilient woman who is driven by her desire to protect her children. Besides her children, the closest people in her life as the book opens are her brother, Ryan, and the staff of Solitude. She parents the twins and runs a business by herself with minimal support; although she and Ryan are close, he is in the military and so isn’t physically present to assist with daily life. Ella’s toughness comes partly from a forced independence—her parents have passed away, her brother is deployed, and she was forced to take on the responsibility of parenting twins as well as running a family business at a young age.