Hearty: A Small Town, Roommate Romance (Ashton Family)

Hearty: A Small Town, Roommate Romance (Ashton Family)

They say you can always go home again, but for August Percy, that didn’t apply even when she had to live there until her eighteenth birthday. After saying goodbye to a toxic childhood, she never planned to look in the rearview. Until the death of the woman who caused all her trauma forces her back to Hope Crest. With a mountain of debt and an uncertain future, August at least has a soft place to land when her former employer and surrogate big brother offers her a house that isn’t chock full of nightmares from the past. What she never bargained for, though? The boy-turned-man she’s always crushed hard on from afar accidentally becoming her roommate. Evan Ashton is the prodigal son who finally came home … even if he didn’t necessarily want to. As the new head chef of his family’s fourth-generation restaurant, he’s trying to build his own legacy in a line full of stubborn men. So when he ends up under the same roof as the closed-off woman the rest of his siblings seem to know so well, Evan attempts to shut down any curiosity since he can’t afford more complications in his life. Except conversations over late night snacks, having her unexpectedly working in his kitchen, and inevitably bumping into her at every family celebration they’re both invited to only seems to bring him closer to August … until all of that tension bubbles over. Then danger begins to close in, and it’s not even a thought of putting himself between her and the threat. But secrets beyond either of their control, and opportunities far from Hope Crest, begin to cause cracks. And when both of them question whether their intense connection can last for longer than right now, it may just be their final undoing.