by Olivia Dade
Part of Harlot's Bay
First published 2025
Molly is in Los Angeles, freshly divorced and narrating monster romance audiobooks for a living, when she sees it: Karl's obituary in the Harlot's Bay local paper. The grief that hits her is sharper than she expects from someone she hasn't spoken to in years. She books the next flight to Maryland. Karl is not dead. He is standing in his bakery, very much alive, and deeply surprised to see her. The two of them never dated in high school, though for a moment after graduation it seemed like they might. A foolish misunderstanding ended things before they started, and both of them carried that silence forward for decades. Now Molly is back, Karl has been secretly listening to every audiobook she narrates, and the old unfinished business between them is impossible to ignore. Molly is a cynic who has reasons to keep her guard up. Karl is gruff and stubborn and not easy to warm to. But as they finally talk through what went wrong all those years ago, something shifts. Her return flight is not far off, and Karl is running out of time to show her that he is worth trusting a second time.
Genres: romance, contemporary, adult, adult-fiction, contemporary-romance
Vibes: bittersweet, emotional, heartfelt, intimate, nostalgic
Tropes: forced-proximity, friends-to-lovers, miscommunication, second-chance-romance
Setting: Los Angeles, Maryland, Harlot's Bay
395 pages · Kindle Edition · Avon