Overview

Some women discover themselves in their twenties. Stella Monroe is doing it at forty-two, during perimenopause, while trapped in a mountain cabin with an editor who asks too many questions and makes her feel things she's spent two decades pretending don't exist.

The manuscript was supposed to be her masterwork - twenty years of research on performative femininity, on the masks women wear to survive. Instead, it's become evidence of her own carefully constructed life: the marriage she endured, the desire she buried, the person she never let herself be.

Then Jade Aldana arrives with her ridiculous Christmas decorations, her unshakable optimism, and her ability to see straight through every defense Stella's ever built. Suddenly, the book isn't the only thing unraveling.

They have until December 24th to finish the manuscript. Eight days of forced proximity, intellectual sparring, and a chemistry that makes Stella's carefully ordered world feel impossibly small. Eight days to decide whether academic success matters more than the kind of want that changes everything.

A low-angst, high-heat sapphic Christmas romance about second chances, unexpected desire, and finding love when you've given up looking for it.

Features: forced proximity. Age gap. Grumpy/sunshine dynamic. Christmas magic. And absolutely no third-act breakup. Contains mature themes.