Next of Kin: A Novel

Nothing tests your patience quite like being forced to share a home with someone who irritates you—except maybe realizing that person might be exactly what you need.

People-pleaser Chloe has always tried to do the right thing, so when she discovers her birth mother has had another baby, she doesn't think twice about stepping up as next-of-kin guardian. There's just one problem: she can't pass Child Protective Services' financial evaluation on her own. Faced with the possibility of her baby sister entering the foster care system, Chloe agrees to participate in a new CPS initiative—joining households with another prospective guardian to qualify. Enter: the one person she's already decided she can't stand.

He's opinionated, frustrating, and inexplicably attractive. She's warm, overly accommodating, and equally infuriating to him. They clash on practically everything—except their shared, fierce determination to give their younger siblings a stable, loving home. As they navigate the messy logistics of manufactured domesticity, the line between bickering housemates and something far more complicated begins to blur dangerously fast.

Hannah Bonam-Young delivers a contemporary romance that's equal parts warm and witty, grounding the enemies-to-lovers tension in something deeply real: the lengths we go to for family, chosen and biological alike. With sharp dialogue, genuine emotional stakes, and a slow-burn romance that earns every moment, *Next of Kin* is the kind of story that lingers long after the final page—and makes you root for everyone in it.