The Adventurer's Accidental Apprentice
A Cozy Fantasy Bakery Novel

About this book:

Felix has been fired from six bakeries in three provinces—not for lack of skill, but for an incurable habit of tinkering with tradition. When a storm drives him into Oakhaven's most forbidding shop, *The Hearth & Loaf*, he finds a magnificent stone hearth, a stock of burnt loaves, and Garrett: a scarred, silent giant of a man who bakes with military precision and zero patience. Felix only wants a warm corner and a crust of bread. Garrett only wants to be left alone with his ghosts. Neither gets their wish.

What begins as a desperate bargain—flue-cleaning for a night's shelter—kneads into something neither expected. Between dawn batches of sourdough and cinnamon-scented mornings, Felix's restless innovation clashes with Garrett's ironclad routine, slowly proving the most stubborn dough can rise with the right touch. But Garrett's past is a sealed crock, and Felix's wanderlust has never let him stay. As the Festival of the Hearth approaches and the shop fills with the scent of golden crusts and something dangerously like belonging, both men must decide if a bakery can hold two masters—and if home is a place you find, or a thing you build.

Warm, witty, and rich with the alchemy of flour and fire, *The Adventurer's Accidental Apprentice* serves up a grumpy/sunshine romance of the platonic variety, a found-family feast, and the simple, sustaining magic of showing up, day after day, to feed the people you love.