First published 2026
Emmy has a business to run and an enemy named Luke to avoid. Both goals are going fine until they show up at the same investor's door asking for money. The investor, eccentric as they come, refuses to choose between them. Instead, he sends them both to work at a struggling local bookshop that caters to baby dragons, telling them whoever proves their magical business chops wins the funding. Emmy throws herself into the job. The problem is the shop is a fire hazard by nature, baby dragons are not easy customers, and Luke is there every single day looking exactly as irritating and handsome as her own dragons keep reminding her. The two rivals clash, then start to cooperate, because some problems are simply too big and too flammable to solve alone. As they patch up the bookshop together, Emmy starts to wonder whether the animosity she has carried toward Luke is the whole story. Aamna Qureshi builds a warm, funny romance around a genuinely charming premise: what does it take to make a bookshop safe for creatures that breathe fire, and what happens to two people who figure it out side by side.
Genres: romance, fantasy, comedy, fantasy-romance, contemporary-romance
Vibes: charming, funny, lighthearted, warm, whimsical
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forced-proximity, rivals-to-lovers
Setting: bookshop
334 pages · Paperback · Avon