by Ann Aguirre
First published 2023
Iris Collins has always been the disaster of the family. Her sisters thrive; she can't get through a single month without blowing her budget. So when a great-aunt leaves her a house, Iris sees a lifeline. The B&B plan falls apart almost immediately. Instead, she starts renting out rooms one by one, and the tenants who show up are strange, lost, and not entirely what they seem. Some of them may not even be human. Eli Reese took a different path to the same lonely place. He built his money writing apps, but wealth never bought him a real community or anyone who got him. He never stopped thinking about his first crush, and when he spots Iris in a cafe, he follows the feeling straight into her orbit. He moves into one of her rooms. Days pass. He gets to know the odd little household she has assembled, and he gets to know her. Iris built something without meaning to. The question sitting at the center of this story is whether she and Eli can recognize it for what it is before one of them finds a reason to leave.
Genres: fiction, romance, fantasy, contemporary, adult
Vibes: cozy, heartwarming, intimate, quirky, whimsical
Tropes: first-love-reunion, found-family, second-chance-romance, slow-burn
Setting: The Purple House
370 pages · Paperback · Sourcebooks Casablanca