Cassidy Trevor has always been the reliable one—holding her family together and running the day-to-day at their beloved quilt shop in St. Caroline. But behind her polished smile and to-do lists lies a secret she hasn’t shared with anyone: she’s planning to leave her small hometown and finally chase a life of her own.
Matt Wolfe has perfected the art of not getting attached. With a family legacy in firefighting and a front-row seat to life’s most unpredictable tragedies, he’s convinced it’s better never to want too much—because you just might lose it.
When the two are roped into co-chairing St. Caroline’s first Winter Festival, no one expects them to get along—least of all each other. Cassidy is all order and plans; Matt is all charm and chaos. But what starts as a reluctant partnership soon sparks into something neither of them saw coming.
A holiday fling seems like the perfect solution: no strings, no expectations. She’s leaving. He never sticks around. What could possibly go wrong?
Everything—especially when the one person who supports your dreams becomes the one you can't imagine leaving behind.
Set against the snowy charm of a Chesapeake Bay winter, this heartfelt romance is perfect for readers who crave emotional depth, genuine characters, and sweet, small-town love stories with a guaranteed happily ever after.
Julia Gabriel lives in New England where she is a mom and an obsessive quilter (is there any other kind?). She teaches creative writing in Emerson College's MFA in Popular Fiction program. If all goes well, she’ll be a Parisienne in her next life.
Her books have been selected as “Top Picks” by RT Book Reviews, and critics at RT Book Reviews, Kirkus, and others have called her work “nuanced,” “heart-wrenching and emotional,” “well-crafted contemporary romance,” and “deeply moving storytelling.”