Once Upon a Time in Dollywood

A playwright must grapple with her difficult year and writer''s block while falling for the single dad living next door in this emotional debut novel from Ashley Jordan. Eve Ambroise may be a rising star playwright, but her personal life is falling part. Desperate for a fresh start, she breaks up with her fiancé, cuts off her parents, and heads to the Tennessee mountains. But keeping up the lie that she’s just on a writing retreat becomes near impossible when faced with the well-meaning townspeople and a neighbor who has just as much baggage as she has. Coming off a contentious custody battle, Jamie Gallagher is restructuring what his life looks like as a single dad, and spending more days at his cabin makes his new “free time” a little less empty. Especially when he meets the beautiful--and prickly--woman next door. The last thing he needs is a new romance to shake up his family dynamics even more, but there’s something about Eve. What starts out as a fling quickly becomes more serious, and it’s not long before Eve is running scared once again. She’s loved and lost in every possible way, and risking it one more time could finally break her. But like the fireflies that fill the mountains around them, Jamie''s and Eve’s lives keep falling into sync. A fairy-tale ending could be in the cards, but only if the new couple can get out of their heads and put their hearts first.

Autorentext
Ashley Jordan (she/her) is a millennial from Atlanta by way of Brooklyn. She attended Spelman College, obtaining a degree in Psychology and a lifelong love and appreciation for women’s stories. While she currently works in public health, she has embraced writing as a hobby since penning her first short story in second grade. When Ashley isn't at the day job or writing, she is either at a Beyoncé concert, rewatching Mad Men, or arguing about basketball with anyone who will listen. In 2023, she became a Reese's Book Club LitUp Fellow.

Klappentext

**A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK ∙ AN AMAZON BEST ROMANCE BOOK OF THE MONTH!

“A moving, captivating, beautiful debut! I can’t wait for the whole world to read it."—Jasmine Guillory, New York Times bestselling author of Flirting Lessons

A playwright must grapple with her difficult year and writer's block while falling for the single dad living next door in this emotional debut novel from Ashley Jordan.**

Eve Ambroise may be a rising star playwright, but her personal life is falling part. Desperate for a fresh start, she breaks up with her fiancé, cuts off her parents, and heads to the Tennessee mountains. But keeping up the lie that she’s just on a writing retreat becomes near impossible when faced with the well-meaning townspeople and a neighbor who has just as much baggage as she has.

Coming off a contentious custody battle, Jamie Gallagher is restructuring what his life looks like as a single dad, and spending more days at his cabin makes his new “free time” a little less empty. Especially when he meets the beautiful—and prickly—woman next door. The last thing he needs is a new romance to shake up his family dynamics even more, but there’s something about Eve.

What starts out as a fling quickly becomes more serious, and it’s not long before Eve is running scared once again. She’s loved and lost in every possible way, and risking it one more time could finally break her. But like the fireflies that fill the mountains around them, Jamie's and Eve’s lives keep falling into sync. A fairy-tale ending could be in the cards, but only if the new couple can get out of their heads and put their hearts first.

“An entertaining, sexy novel that boldly explores trauma and healing yet still manages to be laugh-out-loud funny”—Library Journal STARRED review

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

Unoriginal Sin

Eve

Eve's thoughts were swirling. Running rampant. She wasn't entirely sure she wasn't drowning-in her feelings, at least-as she sat silent and helpless in front of her fiancé and his therapist, watching them talk about her as if she weren't in the room. She wished she weren't in the room.

I just lost my baby, and now I'm losing my mind.

There were no windows. Why no windows? She might as well have been sitting in a box. That might have made more sense-this sensation of feeling trapped. Instead, Eve just sat there, studying the taupe walls, decorated with little more than degrees and other accolades, counting the minutes until she could escape. There was one actual painting within eyeshot, a chart alleging the correlation between success in therapy and stepping outside one's comfort zone. Eve rolled her eyes.

"She's such a trooper," Leo said, shaking his head. He sighed, the notion ostensibly too heavy to bear, and then followed it up with a half smile in her direction, as if that would somehow console her; as if they wouldn't still be going home with this heartbreak hanging over their heads.

Eve was vexed by his unending affability-something no one would ever accuse her of-knowing he was going to take her hand any second now. And she was going to have to pretend that she wasn't revolted by the thought of being touched in that moment. She would have to force herself not to physically recoil, lest her future husband and his psychiatrist realize just how shitty a person she was.

"I just feel like I'm failing her, because I don't know what to say," Leo continued. "I can't fix it. I wonder if I'm just making shit worse sometimes."

Eve felt herself glaring at him as he pensively rubbed his graying beard, performing his guilt.

That wasn't fair to say. He probably did feel guilty on some level. But it just gave Eve another reason to feel bad, and she already had plenty. The physical ache was enough, but the mental anguish hung on her like lead. It was why she hadn't left the house for the last two weeks. She only came to this appointment so Leo would shut up about it. But if she'd known he'd sit here and effectively blame her for not knowing how to make him feel better, she would've just stayed in bed.

"Eve, do you want to say more about how you've been feeling?" Dr. Hawthorne asked. "Leo wanted you to have a safe space, too."

Eve knew all too well that there were no safe spaces. If there were, this wouldn't keep happening. She wouldn't be mourning the loss of a third embryo, when all she'd wanted, for seventeen years now, was a child.

"I feel broken," she said, and then corrected herself: "Barren."

The doctor nodded. "But you know you're not, right? That your worth, your sense of self, is not wrapped up in carrying a baby to term?"

It was Leo's turn to chime in, apparently. "It's what I've been trying to tell her for a year now. And that we have other options, too, if she wants to try 'em."

Eve nodded back, understanding the logic, and she could see their mouths continue to move, the two of them attempting to explain her own feelings to her. But a rush of emotions left the room spinning, all their words turned to white noise, an incessant scraping at her ears. The dizziness gave way to panic, a feeling as if she'd been pushed off a cliff. A sudden loss of control, both physical and emotional, as pangs of dread thumped in her chest. She felt simultaneously exposed and smothered, cold and hot. The edges of the room went dark, leaving Eve with only her frenzied and conflicting musings. She'd experienced this before, this need to dissociate, to somehow get outside of her own body, but never quite so acutely. She could not sit still any longer.

As Leo indeed reached across the small space between them, taking her hand, Eve disentangled her fingers from his grip and stood from her seat unsteadily.

She grabbed her purse from th…