Wildflower Heart
(2026)(The fifth book in the Serenity Crossing: The Hartwells series)
A novel by Tara Baisden
She's running from a gilded cage. He's hiding behind a five-year plan. Love wasn't part of the spreadsheet.
Victoria "Tori" Hamilton has spent her whole life being the daughter her billionaire parents never wanted—an inconvenience to be managed, an asset to be married off. When a lottery win gives her the escape she's been dreaming of, she lands in the sleepy mountain town of Serenity Crossing, Tennessee, determined to open a florist shop, where nobody knows the Hamilton name and nobody expects anything from her.
Dave Hartwell is the man everyone in Serenity Crossing trusts with their financial secrets and their tax returns. He’s meticulous, reliable, and predictable. He's heard it all before—especially from the fiancée who left him three weeks before their wedding because life with him felt "planned to death." Now he keeps his heart as organized as his color-coded calendar: everything in its place, nothing that can surprise him. Until a vibrant woman with purple painted fingernails and chaos in her wake walks into his office asking him to manage her unexpected fortune.
When the two are thrown together to plan his sister's wedding reception, their opposite worlds begin to collide in ways neither expected. She challenges his rigid routines; he offers her something she's never known—someone who actually shows up. But Tori is hiding more than lottery winnings, and when her carefully buried past threatens to explode across the small-town gossip mill, both must decide: Is love worth the risk of being fully known?
In a community where everyone's business travels faster than Sunday dinner invitations, Tori and Dave will discover that the deepest roots grow in the most unexpected soil—and that sometimes, the most beautiful things bloom when you finally stop running.
Tropes:
Victoria "Tori" Hamilton has spent her whole life being the daughter her billionaire parents never wanted—an inconvenience to be managed, an asset to be married off. When a lottery win gives her the escape she's been dreaming of, she lands in the sleepy mountain town of Serenity Crossing, Tennessee, determined to open a florist shop, where nobody knows the Hamilton name and nobody expects anything from her.
Dave Hartwell is the man everyone in Serenity Crossing trusts with their financial secrets and their tax returns. He’s meticulous, reliable, and predictable. He's heard it all before—especially from the fiancée who left him three weeks before their wedding because life with him felt "planned to death." Now he keeps his heart as organized as his color-coded calendar: everything in its place, nothing that can surprise him. Until a vibrant woman with purple painted fingernails and chaos in her wake walks into his office asking him to manage her unexpected fortune.
When the two are thrown together to plan his sister's wedding reception, their opposite worlds begin to collide in ways neither expected. She challenges his rigid routines; he offers her something she's never known—someone who actually shows up. But Tori is hiding more than lottery winnings, and when her carefully buried past threatens to explode across the small-town gossip mill, both must decide: Is love worth the risk of being fully known?
In a community where everyone's business travels faster than Sunday dinner invitations, Tori and Dave will discover that the deepest roots grow in the most unexpected soil—and that sometimes, the most beautiful things bloom when you finally stop running.
Tropes:
- Opposites attract
Small-town romance
Secret past
Forced proximity
Strangers to lovers
Found family
Reader Promise: This clean Christian contemporary romance delivers swoony small-town charm, a faith journey that inspires without preaching, and a guaranteed happily-ever-after that will leave your heart full.
Wildflower Heart is the fifth book in The Hartwell Family Series. Each book features a different Hartwell sibling finding love and can be read as a standalone, though readers will enjoy watching the family grow across all six books.
Genre: Romance