When your gingerbread men stage a jailbreak, you either give up baking... or chase them through a grumpy bear shifter's Christmas tree farm.Ruby Winters just wanted to make a good first impression in her new magical town. Instead, her overzealous enchantment created forty-eight sentient cookies with a flair for escape artistry... moreWhen your gingerbread men stage a jailbreak, you either give up baking... or chase them through a grumpy bear shifter's Christmas tree farm.Ruby Winters just wanted to make a good first impression in her new magical town. Instead, her overzealous enchantment created forty-eight sentient cookies with a flair for escape artistry. Now she's ankle-deep in snow, chasing rogue gingerbread through Thornwood Pines—right into the territory of Bramble Thornwood, the grumpiest, most solitary bear shifter in Hollybright Hollow.Bram has perfected the art of being alone. His trees don't talk back. His workshop stays quiet. And he definitely doesn't help chaotic witches catch magical baked goods that have achieved parliamentary democracy in his forest.Except he does help. And then he keeps helping. And somewhere between building gingerbread habitats and defending Ruby's "disaster magic" to judgmental townspeople, Bram realizes his carefully controlled life feels a lot less like peace and a lot more like loneliness.Ruby knows she's too much—too loud, too messy, too chaotic. Her family's made that clear. But Bram looks at her runaway cookies and sees creativity, not catastrophe. He looks at her like maybe "too much" is exactly enough.With the Winter Solstice Festival competition looming and the whole town watching, Ruby must keep trying to be perfect, or embrace the beautiful chaos of being herself. And Bram must choose between the safety of solitude and the terrifying joy of letting someone in.Perfect for fans of cozy magic, small-town shenanigans, and grumpy heroes who fall hard for sunshine heroines with absolutely no chill.A closed-door paranormal romance with found family feels, magical mayhem, and a guaranteed HEA. less
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