Bethany Hawthorne has never felt like she truly belongs anywhere.

So when a regular café customer recognises what she is — a witch — and tells her there’s a place where she won’t have to hide her magic, Bethany does something she’s never done before.

She leaves.

Briardell is everything she hoped for: a secluded village filled with warmth, magic, and people who understand what it means to be different. There’s just one small problem.

No one has a spare room to rent.

No one, that is, except the quiet, charming vampire who owns the village bookshop.

Desperate not to lose her chance at belonging, Bethany accepts Caleb Ashcroft’s offer of a room in exchange for helping in the shop. Between shared cups of tea and long evenings under lantern light, an unexpected connection begins to grow — one that feels as comforting as it does frightening. Because both Bethany and Caleb know how easily love can be lost.

But when a restless spirit of loneliness begins draining the joy from Briardell itself, the fragile warmth they’ve found may be the village’s only hope.

If they can stop running from their pasts long enough to choose a future together.