About the Book

When spreadsheets are safer than people, falling in love becomes the ultimate risk in this powerful novel of trauma, healing, and unexpected courage from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Catherine Bybee.

Luna Canning trusts numbers more than people and for good reason. As a forensic accountant who specializes in exposing fraud, she knows numbers never deceive, unlike the toxic family she’s spent a lifetime trying to escape. Now living in her grandmother’s Victorian home, Luna has built a carefully ordered life behind walls she thought were unbreakable.

When her car is stolen from an airport parking lot, former FBI agent turned PI Nate Warren steps in to help and proves more dangerous to her defenses than any thief. Despite Luna’s ironclad rules about mixing business with pleasure, their chemistry ignites, and for the first time, she considers letting someone past her guard. But just as their relationship begins to blossom, Luna’s manipulative mother arrives unannounced, dragging with her a dangerous man and decades of unresolved trauma that threaten everything Luna has built.

Now Luna must confront the ghosts of her past, both metaphorical and possibly literal, as strange occurrences in her historic home suggest she’s not alone. With a violent threat looming and her heart on the line, Luna discovers that sometimes the hardest person to trust is yourself.

Review

When you’ve been hurt by the people who were supposed to love you, keeping your distance feels like common sense. That is the heart of Catherine Bybee’s Lead Me Home, a story about how terrifying and rewarding it is to finally drop your guard.

Our main character, Luna, relies on math to keep her life predictable. As a forensic accountant, she loves numbers because they don't lie, manipulate, or hurt you like real people do. She has built a quiet, safe, totally controlled life inside her late grandmother’s Victorian house.

Enter Nate, a former FBI agent who steps in when her car gets stolen. He is kind, protective, and immediately throws a wrench into her strict rule about keeping everyone at a distance. Their connection feels natural and effortless, but just as Luna starts to consider letting him in, her toxic mother shows up with a massive pile of trouble and dangerous secrets.

When Luna’s past collides with her present through the return of her manipulative mother, the novel shifts from a tender story of intimacy into a high-stakes confrontation with inherited trauma. By blending real-world danger with the unsettling, haunting atmosphere of her historic home, Bybee mirrors Luna’s internal reality: when you try to bury the past, it inevitably finds a way to make noise in the attic.

What makes this book hit home is how relatable Luna’s fear really is. Most of us haven't had to deal with crime bosses or haunting mysteries, but almost everyone knows what it feels like to protect their heart after getting burned. Bybee balances high-stakes romance and suspense with a genuine, comforting message: surviving trauma is hard, but opening up to love takes a whole different kind of bravery.

Ultimately, Lead Me Home offers a resonant reflection on courage. It reminds us that the hardest part of healing isn't surviving the original wound but allowing ourselves the vulnerability to live beyond it.

Lead Me Home is the first book in the Queen Anne series. Look out for Always Been You coming out early next year.

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