Surrendering To The Grump
(2026)(A book in the Maple Lane Falls Romance series)
A novel by Deidre-Ann Anderson
I don't do festivals. I don't do crowds, I don't do funnel cake, and I absolutely don't do the woman currently blocking my truck in the parking lot with a corn maze directional sign and a smile that could power the entire string of pumpkin lights draped across Maple Lane.
I came to Maple Lane Falls three years ago because it's quiet. Because nobody here asks questions. Because the old storefront I turned into a woodworking shop is exactly far enough from the Fall Fest chaos that I don't have to participate in this town's obsession with pumpkins and plaid.
Until this year. When the festival committee decided they needed my parking lot for overflow. And the woman they sent to "negotiate" showed up with apple cider donuts, a clipboard, and the completely delusional belief that sugar and a nice smile will get her anything she wants.
It won't. I don't negotiate.
Except she keeps coming back. Every morning with a new bribe from Pistachio Sweets. Every evening with another "small favor" that somehow requires her standing in my workshop smelling like cinnamon while I try to remember what I was building before she turned my entire routine upside down.
She's sunshine in human form. She's got an opinion about everything, a laugh that carries three blocks, and she treats Ms. Shelly at The Book Nook and Lina at Maple Lane Cafe like family. Everyone in this damn town loves her.
I don't do love. I do quiet.
But she's making quiet feel a lot like lonely. And when she drags me to the Fall Fest and I watch her face light up under the string lights, I realize that the thing I've been protecting myself from isn't noise.
It's feeling alive.
Surrendering To The Grump is a small-town fall romance set during the Maple Lane Fall Fest. Featuring the grumpiest man in town and the sunshine woman who refuses to let him brood in peace, festival mayhem, forced proximity through parking lot negotiations, apple cider donuts as a love language, a hero who surrenders one stubborn inch at a time, and autumn magic that turns enemies into something neither of them expected. BWWM. Insta-love. BDSM. Grumpy/Sunshine. Steamy. Guaranteed HEA.
In the small town of Maple Lane Falls, the fall season is in full swing. This picturesque town is home to your next favorite Grumps and the women who manage to make them smile. You can expect pumpkins, apple cider and apple cider donuts, walks through corn mazes, and falling leaves as the wind blows, plus so much more in this author shared universe series. Welcome to Maple Lane Falls!
Genre: Romance
I came to Maple Lane Falls three years ago because it's quiet. Because nobody here asks questions. Because the old storefront I turned into a woodworking shop is exactly far enough from the Fall Fest chaos that I don't have to participate in this town's obsession with pumpkins and plaid.
Until this year. When the festival committee decided they needed my parking lot for overflow. And the woman they sent to "negotiate" showed up with apple cider donuts, a clipboard, and the completely delusional belief that sugar and a nice smile will get her anything she wants.
It won't. I don't negotiate.
Except she keeps coming back. Every morning with a new bribe from Pistachio Sweets. Every evening with another "small favor" that somehow requires her standing in my workshop smelling like cinnamon while I try to remember what I was building before she turned my entire routine upside down.
She's sunshine in human form. She's got an opinion about everything, a laugh that carries three blocks, and she treats Ms. Shelly at The Book Nook and Lina at Maple Lane Cafe like family. Everyone in this damn town loves her.
I don't do love. I do quiet.
But she's making quiet feel a lot like lonely. And when she drags me to the Fall Fest and I watch her face light up under the string lights, I realize that the thing I've been protecting myself from isn't noise.
It's feeling alive.
Surrendering To The Grump is a small-town fall romance set during the Maple Lane Fall Fest. Featuring the grumpiest man in town and the sunshine woman who refuses to let him brood in peace, festival mayhem, forced proximity through parking lot negotiations, apple cider donuts as a love language, a hero who surrenders one stubborn inch at a time, and autumn magic that turns enemies into something neither of them expected. BWWM. Insta-love. BDSM. Grumpy/Sunshine. Steamy. Guaranteed HEA.
In the small town of Maple Lane Falls, the fall season is in full swing. This picturesque town is home to your next favorite Grumps and the women who manage to make them smile. You can expect pumpkins, apple cider and apple cider donuts, walks through corn mazes, and falling leaves as the wind blows, plus so much more in this author shared universe series. Welcome to Maple Lane Falls!
Genre: Romance