The Velvet Clover: A Christmas Romance

Ava Hawthorne's life is perfectly curated-career-driven, fiercely independent, and resolutely unromantic-until a breakup eight days before Christmas leaves her unexpectedly single and craving change. So, she does what any self-respecting woman would: books a ticket to New York, dodges her family's pity, and chases a shiny new job at a centuries-old Irish atelier.

During her stay at the historic Fitzgerald Hotel, with its overdone Irish charm, a too-jolly mysterious bartender points her toward a velvet curtain. The catch? When Ava steps through, she finds herself in a speakeasy one hundred years in the past-in 1925, to be exact.

Ava swore never to give her power away to love, or let a man derail her ambitions again. But drawn back to the speakeasy night after night, she finds herself pulled into a connection with the enigmatic owner, Cillian, whose piercing eyes and infuriating calm make her want to both kiss him and throw a drink in his face. Their connection is as magnetic as it is impossible: Cillian belongs to 1925; she belongs to 2025.

As the Christmas lights of the city glow around her, Ava must face the fear she's carried since childhood-that love only leads to loss. Because falling for Cillian means risking everything: her career, her control, and her heart on a love that-by all logic-was never supposed to happen.

Will Ava uncover the truth lurking within The Velvet Clover? Can she resist the allure of a past that threatens to consume her? When the lines between her reality and this shadowy world begin to blur, will she find the courage to choose her own path-or be lost to the secrets that bind her?