The Cinnamon Bun Book Store (Dream Harbor, #2)

by Laurie Gilmore

Not that Hazel understood that line of reasoning. She always wanted to be browsing the shelves of a bookstore.

Hazel was literally surrounded by amazing stories, books filled with love and adventure and life, but Hazel herself was stuck.

Hazel had a different problem with thirty. She’d forgotten to have wild and storied days.

Her heart was racing, and only partially because she’d been caught reading smut during work hours. The

The blueberries popped tart and bright in her mouth. They tasted like summer and new beginnings.

‘Hazel hates sunshine. She’s like a vampire.’ ‘I am not! I just prefer to be inside. I’m an inside cat.’

‘Do you want to have a milkshake with me?’ she asked. ‘There is literally nothing else I’d rather do.’

Activity and noise and lights and bodies swirled around her, but Noah only saw her. It was as though everything else was blurred but Hazel was crystal clear.

‘Beach naps are the best naps.’

‘Good books,’ she said after a minute, her gaze returning to his. ‘Good friends. Good food.’ He smiled up at her. ‘What more do you need?’

He was falling hard for Hazel Kelly.

‘I always bring a book, just in case.’ ‘Just in case of what?’ ‘Just in case the person I wanted to see gets very busy doing his job and I have to wait to talk to him.’

But the only opinion he cared about in this room was Hazel’s. Even if she did only think of him as a good time.

He was summer and she was fall. He was adventure and she was comfort. But right now, on the cusp between the two seasons, in this liminal space they’d carved out for themselves, they fit just right.

These epic fantasy novels seemed to be the antidote to his normally fidgety behavior. When he was in the story, everything else faded away.