Beneath the Ice: Beneath the Ash Publishing

Sophie Whitmore doesn't do feelings.

The ice queen of Le Grenier has spent her seasons behind the bar keeping everyone at arm's length. People who get close eventually leave. Sophie learned that the hard way.

Then Niko Moretti gets shot.

She's been watching the golden retriever of the resort staff for two seasons. All sunshine and charm. The kind of man who lights up every room. But when a robbery leaves him bleeding in her arms, Sophie discovers something terrifying. She can't imagine her life without him.

When a New Year's Eve storm strands them at a sister hotel high in the mountains, with one room and one bed between them, they give in to a tension that's been building for months. What starts as one night becomes a secret neither can walk away from.

Niko has been falling for Sophie since the day she walked into Le Grenier. Now he just has to convince her that being loved isn't the same as being trapped.

But Sophie's walls weren't built for nothing. The reason she keeps everyone at a distance is buried deeper than Niko realises, and the closer he gets, the harder she'll fight to keep it that way. Loving Sophie Whitmore means loving someone who's spent her whole life learning how not to need anyone. And Niko? He's done waiting for her to figure out she already does.

As New Year's Eve closes in, Sophie has to choose whether to keep running from the thing she's been running from her whole life, or finally let someone catch her. Some people leave because they want to. Some people leave because they were taught to. Sophie has spent twenty-five years making sure no one ever got close enough to know which she is.

Beneath the Ice is book three in the Seasons of Us series, returning to Le Grenier for one final winter. Where Peak Season was about learning to feel and Sunship was about learning to choose, Beneath the Ice is about learning to stay. A slow-burn opposites-attract romance with a heroine who's spent her whole life perfecting the art of not needing anyone, and a hero who fell first and refuses to take the hint. Set against a New Year's Eve storm, snowed-in stakes, and the kind of love that strips people back to what they actually want. For readers who love their romance with emotional teeth, atmospheric settings, and heroines who don't go down without a fight.

Some fires burn hottest beneath the ice.