At forty-two, I had two non-negotiable rules for men: they had to weigh less than my cast-iron bakeware, and they weren’t allowed to sleep on my roof without a structural permit.
Currently, whatever is crouched on the northern slate gable of The Cracked Hearth is violating both.
After sixteen years of marriage to a Chicago real estate developer who thought "structural integrity" was an elective lighting package, I traded my corporate architectural license for an 1824 Vermont stone gristmill and an eighteen-year-old sourdough starter named Lucille. I wanted cold mountain air, flour on my apron, and complete, solitary peace.
I didn't expect the gristmill to come with Bramwell Vaelen.
He’s four hundred and twelve years old, stands seven-foot-two in his bare basalt feet, and possesses a pair of slate-gray wings broad enough to canopy my entire patio. He’s also the Sanctuary’s designated master stonemason—and apparently, a gargoyle’s biological nesting instinct means he can’t walk past spalling chimney mortar without having an existential crisis.
Before I can even unpack my French proofing baskets, mysterious acts of service start happening around my bakery:
My drafty brick flue gets secretly repointed at two in the morning.A hand-carved, 78-degree soapstone fermentation box appears on my back counter.And when I complain about cold floor tiles, I wake up to radiant geothermal heat plumbed beneath my bathroom floor.Bram insists he’s just protecting town property. But when my corporate ex-husband shows up with a predatory legal team to condemn my bakery and seize my deed, my grumpy, 340-pound gargoyle neighbor steps down from the roof—and makes it abundantly clear that no one touches his baker.
Now I’m sharing an 85-degree kitchen with a fiercely protective monster who looks at me like I’m his entire hearth. And for the first time in my life, I don’t want to hold up the roof alone.
SOURDOUGH & STONE is a standalone, full-length (88,500-word) cozy midlife monster romance in The Craghollow Sanctuary Series. Features a witty 42-year-old architect/baker heroine, a towering cinnamon-roll gargoyle stonemason who courts via acts of service, forced proximity, extreme size difference, explicit open-door steam (Heat Level 4/5), and a guaranteed HEA with zero third-act miscommunication breakup.