Hearts Restored
(2026)(The second book in the Serenity Crossing: The Hartwells series)
A novel by Tara Baisden
Some buildings can be restored. Some reputations can be rebuilt. But some walls were never meant to come down—until the right person stops trying to tear them apart.
Sarah Hartwell has spent a decade proving she belongs in a man's world. As owner of Hartwell Construction in the small mountain town of Serenity Crossing, Tennessee, she's built her company on quality, grit, and an armor no one can penetrate. Now she's bet everything—her savings, her crew's livelihoods, her entire future—on restoring the historic Granville Theater. She doesn't need help. She doesn't need a partner. And she definitely doesn't need the Nashville architect who shows up acting like he has any right to her project.
Ethan Cole knows what it's like to be destroyed by people you trusted. Two years ago, he took the fall for someone else's failures, and his career crumbled overnight. This theater restoration is supposed to be his second chance—a quiet project in a quiet town where he can rebuild without anyone watching. But the Foundation representative overseeing the funding witnessed his downfall, and she's waiting for him to fail. The last thing he needs is a territorial contractor who fights him on every decision. The last thing he expects is to see past her walls to the exhausted, lonely woman underneath.
Bound together by a ten-week deadline and a community counting on them both, Sarah and Ethan discover that working side by side is dangerous. Professional respect becomes personal. Arguments become conversations that run too deep. And somewhere between salvage yard trips and storm-shelter confessions, walls start crumbling—hers and his. But when the pressure mounts and Ethan makes a choice he thinks will protect her, Sarah faces the one thing she never expected: a man who hurt her not because he didn't care, but because he cared too much in all the wrong ways.
In a town where broken things are given second chances and grace shows up in casseroles and quiet prayers, Sarah and Ethan must decide what they're willing to risk—and whether love can be restored even after trust has been shattered.
Tropes:
Sarah Hartwell has spent a decade proving she belongs in a man's world. As owner of Hartwell Construction in the small mountain town of Serenity Crossing, Tennessee, she's built her company on quality, grit, and an armor no one can penetrate. Now she's bet everything—her savings, her crew's livelihoods, her entire future—on restoring the historic Granville Theater. She doesn't need help. She doesn't need a partner. And she definitely doesn't need the Nashville architect who shows up acting like he has any right to her project.
Ethan Cole knows what it's like to be destroyed by people you trusted. Two years ago, he took the fall for someone else's failures, and his career crumbled overnight. This theater restoration is supposed to be his second chance—a quiet project in a quiet town where he can rebuild without anyone watching. But the Foundation representative overseeing the funding witnessed his downfall, and she's waiting for him to fail. The last thing he needs is a territorial contractor who fights him on every decision. The last thing he expects is to see past her walls to the exhausted, lonely woman underneath.
Bound together by a ten-week deadline and a community counting on them both, Sarah and Ethan discover that working side by side is dangerous. Professional respect becomes personal. Arguments become conversations that run too deep. And somewhere between salvage yard trips and storm-shelter confessions, walls start crumbling—hers and his. But when the pressure mounts and Ethan makes a choice he thinks will protect her, Sarah faces the one thing she never expected: a man who hurt her not because he didn't care, but because he cared too much in all the wrong ways.
In a town where broken things are given second chances and grace shows up in casseroles and quiet prayers, Sarah and Ethan must decide what they're willing to risk—and whether love can be restored even after trust has been shattered.
Tropes:
- Professional Rivals to Lovers
Forced Proximity
Slow Burn Romance
Grumpy/Grumpy (both guarded, neither is the "sunshine")
He Falls First
Small-Town Community
Reader Promise: This clean Christian contemporary romance delivers a slow-burn love story rich with emotional depth, lived-out faith, small-town warmth, and a deeply satisfying happily ever after.
Genre: Romance