I really love all the moments between Tanner and Jax. Jax is a bi (maybe pan?) 26-year-old videographer from California (originally from Cornwall) and when his hostel burns down and leaves him without a place to stay and without any clothes but what he has on his back, Tanner winds up offering Jax his couch at his place above the wine bar. Tanner isn’t a wine person, but he’s been put in charge, and I think he does his best. All we really know about him before this book is that he’s got “A PAST” and nobody will mention what that is, and it’s for us to wait for Tanner to tell us himself. This story is about a character we met in the previous book, a 28-year-old bi man named Tanner who works in the wine bar next to the bookstore, that together, makes up Vino & Veritas. I’m very grateful trigger warnings are included in the blurb (depression, suicidal ideation, and PTSD recovery), but I would also add the following: mentions of emotional abuse, gore, and stalking, mentions of abuse, and harassment of a secondary character. I really loved this book! It’s a quiet book with, you guessed it, a lot of heart!! The two MCs are super lovely and I surprisingly really loved the slower pace of this book to get to know the characters and seeing them fall in love. Triggers: contains mentions of depression, suicidal ideation and PTSD recovery. HEARTSCAPE is a heartfelt MM friends-to-lovers romance in the True North world, with a brooding bartender, a rugged outdoorsman, sweet angst and lots of Shipley cider. Is it wrong to hope we can heal each other? Or will one of us die trying? The last thing I want is to screw this up. But I’ve got a pile of baggage and I don’t want to be a burden on anyone let alone a man who seems to have enough demons of his own. Having Jax in my home makes my chest warm.

I don’t know if it’s his melodic Cornish accent, or his ocean blue eyes, or the rock-hard body with the mysterious scars, but I get the feeling whatever happened to him runs far deeper than those wounds. When a mutual friend calls in a favor, the sexy newcomer winds up crashing on my couch. I just focus on getting through each shift until the night a beautiful stranger appears, looking as lost and damaged as I feel. I’m not the obvious choice to run Burlington’s coolest wine bar-quiet, brooding, clueless about tannin content, and always one wrong turn away from another downward spiral.īut no one seems to mind that I’m a wreck.

Previous books in the series: Featherbed (Annabeth Albert) SYNOPSISįrom award-winning author Garrett Leigh comes a gorgeous new romance in the True North world! Think: great food, burly men and good times.

Undercover by Eliot Grayson