Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier.  Neither is free. Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear. It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do. But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy. There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier.  Neither is free. Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear. It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do. But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy. There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

A woman who has sworn off children suddenly finds herself taking care of her nephew and living in close quarters with her single-dad landlord in this new moving, hopeful slow-burn romance from bestselling author of Promise Me Sunshine and No Matter What. Soli is finally free! (Or so she thinks). After breaking up with her clingy boyfriend, Soli is determined to remain single and dependent-less…when who shows up on her doorstep but her runaway teenaged nephew looking to hunker down in New York City while he figures out who he is. Which wouldn’t be such a big deal if her apartment didn’t flood that night causing the two of them to suddenly need a new place to live. Her landlord, Ethan, feels terrible, and is desperate for her not to move out; he has enough to juggle as a single dad and business owner, recovering from an accident that left him scarred, without adding “find a new trustworthy tenant” to the list. He offers her a proposition: Soli and her nephew can move in with Ethan and his daughter, Miriam, while he renovates her apartment, as long as she promises she’ll stay. Soli’s never been one to want to put down roots, preferring to follow her heart and her heart only, free of the expectations of others. But little does she know that despite her domestic antipathies, she is everything Ethan never dared to hope he’d find.