Toma writes about happily-ever-afters for a living, but her own life feels like an empty page.
With all her friends getting married and moving away, Toma books a stay at a secluded writer's retreat, hoping to find inspiration and maybe a kindred spirit.
She finds Fern immediately. Fern is vibrant, happy-go-lucky, and hauntingly beautiful. Toma is intrigued by the flirtatious woman, even though she doesn't "normally" date women.
Then there is the mistake with the cabin.
When sensitive, withdrawn Quinn arrives late at night, he discovers he's booked into a tiny cabin... with Toma. Apparently, his name, coupled with his career as a bestselling romance author, led the retreat organizers to assume he was a woman. Now, they're stuck together.
Toma tries to be respectful. It’s not a big deal. They can be professional.
But she can't deny the quiet, brooding chemistry she feels with Quinn. And she certainly can't deny the sizzling tension she feels with Fern. When the three of them are drawn into a friendship that feels like something more, Toma realizes she might not have to choose. Can they navigate a new world without a map, or will stepping outside the lines cost them everything?
This is a very high four stars, so I'm ranking it higher, because this deserves to be rounded up!!! Because this romance was beautiful, and exactly all I could ask for Valentine's day!!!
I really love the setting of the book, the writing camp is really fun, it's this mix of a childlike activity in an adult setting, and it allows for a lot of time together!!! But I will say I was very confused about their work as authors, because they feel like indie authors, but then sometimes like super popular authors, so not sure about that, but it's very easy to move past that... because the romance and these relationships are the core of the story!!!
The romance here is perfection!!! The mix of relationships is beautiful!!! It's a bit of love-at-first-sight, but you still have development, relationships changing and becoming deeper with one another!!! The flirting and the banter between Toma with both Fern and Quinn is so excellent, and it's that becoming love slowly, it's trusting one another, and finding that balance in loving both of them and figuring out the way to be with both of them!!!
Then you also have Fern and Quinn!!! I LOVE getting to see a queer platonic relationship, and it develops gradually, and it's both of them seeing they want to be strangers who are with the same person, but developing a friendship that becomes more, that fits the norms of a couple, but without the romance or sex, there's a domesticity and comfort in their relationship!!!
Finally, as individual characters, I really love how each of their pains is portrayed, how they're all in different places of grieving and dealing with it differently, and finding that communication really helps them, finding comfort in shared trauma!!!
This was just an excellent romance!!! I fully adored the love story here and all the relationships present in this book!!! Beautiful!!! Excellent!!!