The whole town loves him. Only the baker can taste what he came to take.
Nettai Malveaux can read the truth of anyone on her tongue, and for a year her life in Bramblesweet has been sweet and quiet. Then a genealogist named Aurelien Cadeau arrives, charming, helpful, impossible to dislike, and Nettai tastes the wet stone underneath his warmth: an obligation older than he is, aimed straight at the woman she loves.
Aurelien has come tracing her grandmother's line, and a date on the church calendar is quietly lining up with a debt sixty years old. His family calls what they do a gift. What they mean is a claim. And the copper hour, that deep penny-colored light before dark, is exactly when a gift like theirs travels furthest and lands hardest.
Solene was hidden from this family before she was ever born. Now they have found her, and the only thing standing between her and a kindness that would quietly unmake her is a town that has no idea it is about to fight for one of its own. To win, Nettai will need every hand that loves Solene, standing close enough to touch.
A cozy, tender second course in a completed trilogy, for readers who love found family, small town magic, and quiet courage. Best read after The Taste of Truth.
