Genre: Contemporary Romance
Tone: Emotional, heartwarming, with slow-burn chemistry
Concept:
After a devastating breakup and the loss of her grandmother, Claire Montgomery returns to her sleepy hometown in the Blue Ridge Mountains to settle the estate. Her plan: stay two weeks, sort through memories, and leave the past behind. What she doesn’t expect is to find Eli Grant—her former best friend and once almost-more-than-that—still living next door, now a quiet carpenter with wounds of his own.
As Claire restores her grandmother’s overgrown garden, she and Eli reconnect, their conversations as natural as they were years ago. But buried beneath shared laughter and old songs are unresolved feelings and choices that once pulled them apart.
When secrets from the past begin to surface and the town prepares for its annual Willow Festival, Claire must choose: escape back to the life she built, or risk her heart again in the place she once called home
