The fire took the one person who ever believed in her. The investigation might take everything else.
Briar Whitfield built her late aunt's glassblowing studio into the beating heart of Harbor's End, Maine — right up until the night it burned to the ground with her business partner inside. Now the insurance payout that should have saved her livelihood has made her the prime suspect in his death, and the only person standing between her and a murder charge is the detective who can't decide if he wants to arrest her or protect her.
Detective Nash Dalton came home to Harbor's End to escape a fire that already cost him everything once — a partner, a conviction, a piece of himself he's never gotten back. He swore the next case would be clean: evidence only, no attachments, no mistakes. Then he meets Briar Whitfield, and every instinct that kept him alive on the job starts screaming that the woman he's supposed to be building a case against is being set up — and that the real fire is still burning.
As the evidence twists and the body count climbs, Briar and Nash are forced into an uneasy, electric partnership: she needs him to see past the motive that makes her look guilty; he needs her steady nerve and her knowledge of the town's oldest secrets to catch whoever is really pulling the strings. But the closer they get to the truth — and to each other — the more dangerous Harbor's End becomes. Someone in this town has already killed once to protect a fortune. They won't hesitate to do it again.
A fast-paced, twisty small-town suspense with a slow-burn (literally) romance, a detective who breaks his own rules, and a heroine who refuses to be anyone's easy answer.
Tropes: Law-Enforcement Hero, Wrongly Suspected Heroine, Small-Town Suspense, Slow Burn, Attraction During Investigation, Past Trauma