📖 Twice Shy

If you dream something hard enough, it might just come true . . . Maybell Parrish lives with her head in the clouds, which is the sensible choice because her fantasy life is wonderful. She runs a cosy coffee shop, surrounded by friendly colleagues and delicious baked goods, and is together with the man of her dreams - the one she's now certain doesn't exist. In real life, she works in a thankless job surrounded by screaming children, blocked toilets and work frenemies who pity her, whilst trying not to think too hard about her absent mother and doing her best to deal with debilitating panic attacks. So, when Maybell inherits a stately old manor from her eccentric Great Aunt Violet, it's as though a piece of her dreams has finally come true . . . But when she arrives at her new home, nothing is as she'd hoped. Not only is the magical manor she remembers falling apart, but Great Aunt Violet had plans. Enter Wesley Koehler, the handsome-yet-surly groundskeeper. Wesley turns out to be the co-inheritor of the property - and seems determined to avoid speaking to Maybell completely, which is just fine with Maybell. Yet, as the pair begin to tackle Violet's long list of demands, it becomes clear that Wesley's brooding exterior hides a shy, kind nature that has also found the real world a difficult place to be - in fact, could it be that Wesley and Maybell are better matched than even Maybell could ever have dreamed?