Twice Shy

When Maybell Parish inherits a charming cottage in the Smoky Mountains, she's convinced the universe is finally giving her the fresh start she's been dreaming about — until she discovers she's sharing the inheritance with the grouchiest man alive.

Wesley Koehler has been the groundskeeper of Violet's beloved property for years, and he has very specific plans for its future. Plans that do not involve a wide-eyed, perpetually optimistic dreamer breezing in and upending everything he's worked for. He's brooding, he's stubborn, and he communicates mostly in glares and monosyllables. Maybell, naturally, finds this both infuriating and entirely too fascinating.

The house itself isn't making things easier. Crumbling and in desperate need of attention, it demands that these two unlikely co-inheritors actually cooperate — something Wesley seems constitutionally opposed to. But Maybell has never been very good at taking a hint, and the more she pushes past his walls, the more she suspects the surly groundskeeper might be hiding a heart worth finding.

This contemporary enemies-to-lovers romance from Sarah Hogle leans fully into the grumpy-sunshine dynamic with warmth, wit, and genuine emotional depth. Wesley and Maybell's slow-burn tension crackles on every page, wrapped up in cozy mountain scenery and a beautifully messy inheritance situation that forces two very different people to confront not just their conflict — but the undeniable pull between them.

Sometimes the most guarded hearts hold the greatest love stories.