The Cozy Nook Bookshop

by Jeannie Chin

Genres: Small Town & Rural; Contemporary Romance; Holiday Romance

Synopsis

Fate and small-town charm bring two people together at Heart's Hope Crossing in the first book of a new cozy, spicy romance series from bestselling author Jeannie Chin. 

Release date: August 25, 2026

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

SOMETIMES, JUST FOR FUN, Emma Rogers-Li liked to google countries without extradition treaties to the United States. Not for herself, of course. She hadn’t cooked the books for a small publishing company, bankrupted the business, and then disappeared under cover of darkness when the cops started to close in.

That had been her ex-fiancé, Brock.

He’d left a note, apologizing for draining their joint savings account and wishing her the best. There’d been no forwarding address—just a hint that he’d taken himself and his new black-market identity someplace the FBI, the IRS, and a whole bunch of other law enforcement agencies with three-letter acronyms wouldn’t be able to touch him.

That was two weeks ago. By now, he could be anywhere. Moldova. Burkina Faso. The Solomon Islands. Just to name a few.

Meanwhile, Emma was sitting here in the New York City apartment she was probably going to get evicted from at the end of the month, scrolling the internet for pictures of beach houses along the coastline of beautiful, non-extraditing Montenegro.

Huffing out a breath through her nose, she closed the browser window and sat up a little straighter on what used to be their couch. She’d indulged herself enough. It was like her dad always said: Wallowing never fixed anything. It was time to roll up her sleeves and get back to work.

So she popped open a fresh browser tab and navigated back to her favorite job-hunting site. There wasn’t much new to see. She’d already submitted her résumé to a few dozen places, but she’d barely gotten a nibble. It probably didn’t help that she’d started working for Brock’s family’s company the day after they graduated from college together. She might have risen to become head of marketing, but no one wanted to hire a twenty-seven-year-old whose only job experience outside of a Dairy Queen was a disgraced publishing house. None of her former contacts in the industry would even answer her calls.

But she needed to figure out something—and fast. It wasn’t as if she could just move back home with her recently retired parents. They’d offered to help, of course, but they’d sold the old house and were currently living out of an RV, slowly sightseeing their way across the Midwest. She couldn’t horn in on their Great American Road Trip, and she couldn’t stand to be the reason they started eating into their nest egg faster than they’d planned to.

Maybe there was a Dairy Queen that wouldn’t mind an eight-year résumé gap?

Before she could bring herself to investigate that particular worst-case scenario, an alert dinged in her browser window. A skitter of hope dared to flit through her chest, only to be instantly dashed when she clicked on the notification. No one had responded to any of her applications. But there was a new posting that met her increasingly wide set of criteria.

She furrowed her brows. A little bookshop in some middle-of-nowhere town in Vermont was looking for a new manager. Publishing experience not required but preferred. And the salary…

Her eyes flew wide. That was beyond generous, considering the position came with housing for the first year. She wasn’t really sure about working retail, or picking up everything and moving a few hours north, but what did she have to lose?

Before she could think too much about it, she clicked the button to start filling out the application.…

“Why do you want to know my favorite color?” she murmured beneath her breath. Other questions about her preferred reading genre and her opinion on dated planners versus bullet journals were pretty random, too, but at least they had something to do with working in a bookstore. At least she wasn’t being asked to send nudes—unlike one of the other “job postings” she’d almost gotten lured in by the day before.

Shaking her head, she attached her résumé and hit send before setting her laptop aside and stretching her arms over her head. It would probably just turn out to be another dead end. She started to get up to refill her water—had to stay hydrated, after all. But before she could go far, that same alert chimed again.

There was a new message from an Alamea Smith, owner and proprietor of the Cozy Nook Bookshop in Heart’s Hope Crossing, Vermont.

All it said was: When can you start?

“Just because something is too good to be true doesn’t mean it isn’t,” Emma stated firmly, keeping her eyes on the road as she maneuvered her sensible hybrid hatchback past a semitruck barely doing fifty in the fast lane.

Her mom’s voice crackled over her car’s speakers. Her faint hint of a Chinese accent was pure comfort to Emma’s ears. “That’s my girl,” she encouraged. “Always looking on the bright side.”

Emma smiled, even though her mom couldn’t see it over the phone. That had been her job since forever. Stay positive, get the job done, be grateful.

“There’s nothing but bright side to see.”

And there wasn’t, really. Sure, this whole new job at the Cozy Nook Bookshop could be some weird scam, but the relocation allowance Alamea Smith had deposited into her account had been real enough. Once the money had cleared, Emma had successfully closed out her affairs in the city, sold or given away the vast majority of her possessions, and loaded the rest of them into the back of her car. There was a freedom to driving north on the highway, the gray city skyline receding in her rearview mirror, possibly for good.

And maybe there was a twinge of regret in her chest. New York had been her home for about a decade now. She’d had a great time there in college, and it had been a fun place to spend her early twenties.

She couldn’t say she’d really been in love with the hustle and bustle of daily life in Manhattan, though. It was just… sort of where she’d ended up.

At the moment, it was hard to remember why, though. The sky above was a brilliant blue, and even with the windows rolled up so she could hear her mom, there was a crispness to the air. The trees flying past were lush and green, with the faintest hints of yellow and orange dotting the leaves. Before long, they’d be a riot of color.

She’d basically missed autumn the past few years. Brock had never liked leaving the city. He was allergic to everything, and he was convinced he’d get poison ivy or attract a herd of ticks if he ventured off-road. She’d thought it was funny at first, but over the years, it had become her new normal. She’d gone with the flow, and in the process, she’d lost track of her own roots as a suburban kid who couldn’t wait to go play outside.

“This change of scenery is going to be great,” she insisted, projecting all the confidence she had. In theory, she was reassuring her mother here, but it didn’t hurt to put the words out there as a little bit of reassurance for herself, too.

“I know, honey.” Her mom sighed. “But if you change your mind…”

“You’ll be the first person I call,” Emma promised, not for the first time, and probably not for the last.

Finally appeased, her mom let her change the subject. Emma was relieved to be able to sit back and let her mom’s typical recitation of their upcoming travel itinerary keep her company as she drove. Her parents were tooling around the western edge of Lake Michigan this week, and apparently it was experiencing the same gorgeous, early fall weather southern Vermont was.

Her mom clicked her tongue. “I just wish your grandmother were here to see it.”

Emma’s smile went brittle around the edges. “I bet she would have loved it.”

Her grandma Li hadn’t been able to leave the house much in those last, difficult years, but she’d always had a soft spot for the first glimpses of autumn leaves. Her mom would go to any lengths to make sure she got to see them.

They kept chatting for a while longer, but eventually Emma’s dad started grumbling in the background about wanting to get brunch.

Emma rolled her eyes fondly. “Say hi to Dad for me.”

“I will. Text me when you get there, and I want to hear everything later tonight.”

“You bet.” Emma usually only talked to her mom once a week or so, but she was sure she’d be eager to have someone to spill everything to after she got her first impressions of her new situation.

Her mouth dipped down into a frown for a moment as she said her goodbyes. She’d thought she had a decent social life back in New York, but at the end of the day, she had a busy job, and she had Brock, so she didn’t get out all that much. Most of the people she considered friends were really Brock’s buddies’ partners. She’d probably stay in touch with them casually on social media, but she couldn’t really imagine calling any of them out of the blue to dish about her new life in the middle of nowhere.

The only person she could imagine talking to, other than her mom, was her friend Ji-An. But Ji-An had been her co-worker before she’d been her friend. When the company had imploded, Ji-An had lost her job, too, and rather than commiserate with Emma, she’d blamed her. Sometimes Emma blamed herself, too. How could she not have known what Brock was up to? How could she have been such a fool?

Not that that kind of negative thinking was going to do her any good now.

The car was quiet without her mom’s voice in her ear, and she didn’t want to dwell too much, so she rolled down the windows and hit play on her “Keep Your Chin Up” playlist.

Before long, she was exiting the highway. She’d thought the scenery was beautiful before, but as she navigated back roads and headed up into the mountains, the views took her breath away. The valley opened up in front of her, the subtle changes to the foliage more pronounced the higher she climbed in both altitude and latitude.

The ascent leveled off, and the next thing she knew, the speed limit dropped, and a big, inviting white sign by the side of the road welcomed her to Heart’s Hope Crossing. She smiled in spite of herself at the cheery red lettering and the picture of a heart hovering over a charming, old-timey street crossing. Soon houses began dotting the road, ranging from tiny, cozy cottages to big white buildings with dramatic, slanting roofs.

Following her GPS, she turned at the first stoplight and soon found herself in a little downtown straight out of a picture postcard. Neighbors visited on benches set along tree-lined streets. Parents pushed strollers, and dogs got tangled in each other’s leashes.

There wasn’t a chain restaurant in sight. Instead, there was a mom-and-pop-style diner with a waitress in a red apron serving customers on a shaded patio. A cute bakery and a quirky houseplant store, and a charming bistro advertising their new fall menu on a chalkboard sign. And there, up ahead…

It probably shouldn’t have been such a relief to discover that the Cozy Nook Bookshop was in fact a real live place, but the moment it came into view, something eased inside her chest. The brick building was old but well-maintained, with a weathered green awning and a big display window showing an admittedly dated selection of books, but that was why she was here, right? To manage the place.

When she’d attempted to coordinate her arrival with Alamea Smith, she’d been told to just come straight to the store. The apartment where she’d be staying was right upstairs, so that would be the easiest way to come get the key and a quick introduction to her new life here in Heart’s Hope Crossing. It was just about noon, so the store should be open, but Emma scrunched up her brow. It looked kind of dark inside.

She parked around back as instructed, though. Leaving all her earthly possessions in the back of the car, she wandered around front, and sure enough, the door was locked, even though the posted hours said the shop should be open. Frowning, she shaded her eyes from the sun and tried to peer inside. Books, books, more books. A little café. But no people.

That nervous flutter she’d been trying to keep at bay all morning dared to rear its head again.

“It’s fine,” she promised herself under her breath. She pulled out her phone and called the number Alamea had given her.

Faint ringing sounded in the distance. She turned back toward the closed store. The ringing was definitely coming from inside. Right. Because the only contact number she had was apparently for the shop’s landline.

That was fine. No problem. No reason to panic. Keep a positive attitude, and just look for the next step.

The shop wasn’t in disrepair or anything, so someone would definitely be along eventually. She glanced around, but no one was currently heading in her direction. The couple of dads out for afternoon walks with their babies in strollers shot her a curious look and a smile from across the street. The veteran New Yorker inside her instinctively turned away.

Maybe she should try the back door. As she hurried around the corner, her phone buzzed, and her heart lifted. Maybe that was Alamea. She lifted the screen, tilting it to avoid the glare from the sun.

But before she could register who it was, she slammed right into a brick wall.

Only no. It wasn’t brick. It was firm and warm and smelled like fresh pine and cedar.

And she currently had her hand on its pecs.

She jerked back, apologies on her lips, because the wall wasn’t a wall. Her gaze drifted up the length of the big, broad man standing in front of her, and her jaw dropped just a little. He was dressed in hardworking jeans and scuffed boots. The charcoal Henley he wore under a plaid flannel shirt showed the tiniest hint of chest hair, and she forced herself to pick her jaw up off the floor.

He was white, with a brown beard that glinted copper in the sun, and a thick head of slightly darker hair that she had the nearly irresistible urge to run her fingers through, just to find out if it was as soft as it looked.

His hazel eyes stared down at her, and she wanted to sink into them as they raked her up and down, too.

But then, before she could manage to actually, literally swoon at this man, his eyes went hard.

And in a gruff, deliciously deep voice, he barked, “Watch where the hell you’re going.”

NOPE. NO WAY. ABSOLUTELY freaking not.

Hunter Hall took another step back, away from the frankly stunning woman he’d just collided with. The one with long black hair, full red lips, and deep brown eyes—not to mention a figure that made the back of his throat go dry. In desperation, he darted his gaze toward the street sign just over her head, silently begging it to say something other than what it did.

But it was useless. He knew this town like the back of his hand, and he knew exactly where he was. The intersection of Heart Street and Hope Road.

And he knew even better the local legend that surrounded it. He could hear it in his mother’s voice even now: When two strangers meet at Heart’s Hope Crossing, they’re destined to help each other find their heart’s secret hope.

In other words, they were soulmates.

Which was nonsense, of course. How many toddlers had met each other at this corner on their way to story time at the Cozy Nook Bookshop? And none of them had gone on to get hitched. Probably. Though considering people tended to spend their whole lives in this town and marry their high school sweethearts, it might happen more often than anyone realized, but still. It was ridiculous.

But that didn’t stop people from acting like it was some sort of gospel truth. Even his own parents had bought into it, crediting their unlikely meeting on this very street corner as the beginning of their epic love story.

His stomach clenched, and he swallowed hard. Everyone knew how that story had ended.

Hunter wanted nothing to do with a fateful meeting here—no matter how beautiful the girl, or how good she smelled. Like sunshine and flowers, and was sunshine even a scent? It didn’t matter.

What mattered was that both love and fate could take a hike, and as far as he was concerned this girl could, too.

He opened his mouth again, ready to tell her exactly that.

But then his mouth closed. There was this pinched expression to her brows, like she was about to cry, and oh, no.

“Hey,” he started, holding his hands up instinctively, as if he were going to comfort her or something, which was a laugh. Jeez, he’d basically just growled at her. It wasn’t her fault this town had cockamamie ideas about chance meetings and true love that happened to revolve around this specific patch of concrete. “Sorry, I mean—”

“No.” In a flash, whatever hint of emotion had clouded her eyes disappeared. She smiled, too brightly to be real, but that was her business. She lifted her phone and waggled it as if it were the source of all her problems. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

People wandering around with their noses buried in their phones was an issue, but it still didn’t excuse his jumping down her throat. “I’m uninjured.”

She laughed, her smile going a little less fake around the edges, and he liked that more than he should. She gestured at him. “I would imagine so. Think I’d need a real running start to take you down.”

“Let’s not try it.” Even if she did, she was tiny. She’d probably just hurt herself smashing into his chest.

And fine, the idea of her literally throwing herself at him wasn’t exactly unappealing, but he forced himself to flatten out his expression. Fate still wasn’t getting the jump on him. Not today, and not ever.

He cleared his throat and asked, “Are you, uh… okay? Not just in an impact way. You seem…” Upset? Frustrated?

Exhaling hard, she waved her phone in the air again. “I’m fine. Only, I’m supposed to be meeting someone here, and the store says it’s supposed to be open, but it’s not.”

The pieces suddenly fell into place. “You’re the new girl Granny hired.”

That made their head-on collision all the more ominous. If Granny Smith was behind this…

“Your grandmother?” the girl asked.

“No.” He snorted. “That’s just what everybody calls her. You’ll see when you meet her.”

“Okay… but how did you know—”

“Oh, believe me. Small town. Everybody knows everybody, and everybody knows Granny’s been meaning to bring in somebody to help her run the bookshop. Guess she finally found the right person for the job.”

The girl let out a little huff of laughter, like that was funny or something. “I don’t know about that. The interview process was not exactly rigorous.” Her brows scrunched up. “Or existent.”

“Sounds like Granny for you.” Hunter tilted his head toward the front of the store. “Come on, let’s go investigate.”

“I don’t mean to take up any of your time.” She scurried to keep up with him as he led the way.

“It’s no bother. This is where I was heading anyway. Picking up a book for my father.”

“That’s nice of you.”

Hunter chuckled wryly. “Try telling him that.”

“He doesn’t appreciate you running errands for him?”

“He does, in his own way,” Hunter conceded.

Once upon a time, Charles Hall had been more than appreciative. He’d thanked Hunter’s mom for dinner every night, and he’d cooked on weekends, too. These days, though, he was even grumpier than Hunter was—and more reclusive. Which was why Hunter was here in the first place, when he normally avoided going into town if he could come up with any reason not to.

Suspicion prickled in the back of his mind. His father had asked him to pick up the book, all right, but Granny had been the one hounding him to come get it right when the store opened. And now she wasn’t here? While this new girl was?

Granny had a reputation for meddling, but this was devious, even for her.

Arriving at the front of the store, Hunter double-checked the doors, but the girl hadn’t been lying. The place was definitely locked.

“You tried calling?” he asked, peering through the glass.

“No answer.”

He spun around, but he didn’t realize the girl had been standing so close behind him, and he just about collided with her all over again. There was that same warmth and that rush of her sunshine-and-flowers scent, and he sucked in a breath. He moved before he could think about it, reaching up to grasp her by the arms in a mad attempt to keep himself from actually bowling her over this time.

And that was a mistake. She was wearing a dress with a gray cardigan over it, but even through the wool, she felt warm and soft. A crackle of attraction zipped up his spine.

Jerking back, he let go, stammering out an apology.

“Sorry,” she echoed, but there was a pink cast to her cheeks, like maybe she hadn’t been too mad about them literally bumping into each other yet again, and that was bad. Really bad.

“Uh—” he started.

“Oh, there you are.” A voice came from the sidewalk.

They both jumped apart. He swore under his breath, jerking his gaze up to find Granny Smith herself standing there, watching him make an absolute fool of himself.

Granny was about as old as you’d think she was, considering her nickname, but other than using a cane for balance, she was fit as a fiddle, and sharp as a tack. She had weathered, tawny brown skin, and her salt-and-pepper hair was a mass of tightly coiled curls. Dramatically sweeping a beaded shawl across her shoulders, she stared at him through her big, black statement glasses, a pointed smile turning up the corners of her mouth.

Yeah. He had definitely been set up.

“You’re late,” he grumbled at her.

Granny rolled her eyes. “A Jedi is never late, nor is she early. She arrives precisely when she means to.”

“Wizard,” Hunter corrected, at the same exact time the girl murmured the same. He did a double take, glancing over at her, and their gazes met.

Something funny happened in his midsection, but he ignored it and looked away.

Granny waved a hand dismissively. “Space wizards are still wizards. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

They stepped aside to let Granny through. She pulled an enormous key ring from her big, quilted bag, fit it to the lock, and pushed open the door. Hunter reached forward to hold it for her. He kept holding it for the new girl, drawing his mouth into a flat line as she brushed too close to him on her way in.

“You must be Emma,” Granny said, flicking on the lights.

“Yes.” The girl—Emma—followed Granny through the store, rubbernecking the whole way. “Mrs. Smith—”

“Granny,” Granny corrected her.

“Um.” Emma shot a glance Hunter’s way, and he shrugged. He’d told her.

“And I can see you’ve already met our Hunter,” Granny continued, ignoring her misgivings about the nickname.

Emma looked to him again, her brows raised. “Our Hunter?”

“Small town,” Granny said, as if that explained everything, and basically, it did. Of course, she had to go ahead and keep explaining anyway. She at least had the decency to lower her voice slightly before confiding to Emma, “You see, we all basically adopted him after—”

Hunter cleared his throat pointedly, narrowly restraining himself from actually tackling her to stop her spilling secrets that weren’t hers to tell. “You realize I’m standing right here and I can hear you, right?”

“Well, I should hope so,” Granny said. “Means you don’t need hearing aids. Unlike your father.” She lifted a brow in question. “Any progress with that, by the way?”

“What do you think?” His old man was stubborn as could be, and considering how little he liked socializing, his solution to his hearing starting to go was just turning up the TV volume with his remote. “Speak of the devil, though, he said his book was supposed to be in? And you said I needed to come get it at exactly noon?”

Granny put a hand to her heart. “Hunter Thaddeus Hall, where are your manners? Did you not notice that we have a guest?”

“Oh, I’m hardly a guest,” Emma demurred.

“You’ll be a guest for about ten years.” Hunter sighed. “Then maybe they’ll accept you as one of their own.”

Emma blinked, like the idea of staying here for ten years was not on her agenda, and fine, great, all the more reason not to have anything to do with her.

“Don’t pay attention to him.” Granny shook her head. “You’ll find we’re very welcoming. I’m sure you’ll fit right in and feel completely at home within the month.”

“Okay…” Emma said weakly.

Granny wasn’t having it. “I have a good feeling about you.”

Hunter scowled. Granny and her “good feelings” were legendary around here.

Her lips drew up into that cryptic smile of hers, and her voice went all honey and innocence as she darted a finger between the two of them. “So you two just ran into each other outside, then, did you?”

“Granny…”

Emma laughed, completely unaware of what she was getting them both into. “Collided is more like it.” She gestured out the window, and any hopes Hunter might have had about this not turning into a thing withered and died. “Right on the corner there.”

Granny’s smile widened, and there was a twinkle in her eye behind those enormous glasses as she turned to gaze directly at Hunter. “Is that so? Right at the crossing of Heart and Hope?”

“Seriously, about that book,” Hunter gritted out.

“Oh!” The dots seemed to connect in Emma’s mind, but she still was missing half the picture, and Hunter sure as hell wasn’t going to hand it over to her. “Is that where the town gets its name?”

“There’s more to it than that.” Granny stepped behind the counter and wiggled the mouse for the ancient computer that ran the store’s inventory system. “You should ask Hunter to take you out for a drink tonight, and he can tell you all about it.”

“I’m busy,” Hunter answered reflexively, and then immediately regretted it.

Emma had that look in her eyes again—the same one she’d gotten when he’d automatically growled at her outside about watching where she was going.

And just like she had earlier, she blinked. In an instant, the hurt expression on her face was gone, replaced with that fake smile he was already starting to hate. Not that it was his problem if she was putting on a happy face she didn’t actually feel.

“I’ll probably be pretty busy, too,” she chirped. “Getting settled in and all.”

“Ah, there we have it.” Granny clicked a button on the computer mouse, then turned around and plucked the new Cold War thriller Hunter’s dad had ordered off the pickup shelf. “Your father’s book.”

Finally. Now maybe he could get out of here before shoving his foot any deeper in his mouth. “Thanks.”

Granny passed it over. As soon as the book was in his hands, Granny turned to Emma. Too loudly, she suggested, “Now, how about I show you upstairs, and I can help you unload your car?”

Damn it all.

Granny wasn’t even looking at him, but he knew exactly what she was doing.

“Oh, it’s fine.” Emma shook her head. “I’m sure I can manage on my own.”

“I insist.”

The idea of this tiny woman and this old lady hauling boxes and suitcases up the stairs finally broke Hunter. He set the book back down on the counter. “I can help.”

“Oh, are you sure?” Anyone who didn’t know her might have missed the dry sarcasm in Granny’s voice. “Not too busy?”

Emma glanced at him. “You really don’t have to.”

But yeah. He was pretty sure he did.

So he followed them up the stairs, to a little apartment even he had to begrudgingly admit was cute, furnished in a style he was pretty sure his friend Lucas called “cottagecore” when folks asked about it at the hardware store. Two bedrooms, a living room with good natural light, an eat-in kitchen that actually had enough counter space to be useful. It’d be better with an island, but she could sort that out on her own.

She seemed thrilled, gushing about the light and the counters and the green couch with its mountains of decorative pillows. “You don’t mind if I hang up curtains, do you?” she asked Granny.

“Not at all. Make the place your own. And if you need help, I’m sure there are folks who would be happy to lend a hand.”

Hunter kept his own hands firmly in his pockets, clearing his throat. “You said there was a bunch of stuff to unload?”

“Not that much.” Emma fiddled with her keys.

Maybe Granny realized she was pushing it. She shooed them toward the door. “Go on then. Take the back stairs, and prop the door near the loading dock.” To Emma, she added, “When you’re all settled, you can meet me in the shop and we can talk about the job. No rush, though.”

With that, Granny took her leave, heading down to the bookshop. Considering the store was open and unlocked, that was probably a good call.

“You really don’t have to,” Emma tried again.

“I stayed for the tour, didn’t I?” In case that came out too harsh, again, he forced a smile. It wasn’t as hard to summon as he might have expecte. . .