This holiday season surrender is the sweetest escape of all.
This holiday season, escape the noise of the every day and step into the snow—where the shadows are deep, the control is absolute, and surrender is the sweetest escape of all.
Francesca Campisi has never believed in fairytales. She believes in time-worn recipes and keeping her father's bakery solvent. But when a stranger bursts through the door one December night with news of her father's gambling debts, she learns some stories don't ask permission before they begin.
The Natale family has ruled the Aosta Valley for generations. Taken to their secure alpine fortress, Franny is given a precise ultimatum: build a flawless gingerbread replica of the entire estate by the winter solstice. Success clears the ledger. Failure is not tolerated.
Renzo Natale is a man of rigid systems and impeccable control. He has no time for a variable like Franny, yet he watches from the shadows, captivated by the fierce grace and quiet stubbornness of a woman who bends but will not break. As the deadline approaches, the fear he expects is replaced by a raw, unspoken longing she has spent her life trying to suppress.
She came to the mountain to save her family, but surviving the man who holds her breath might cost her everything. Somewhere in the sugar work and the silence, a baker who never believed in fairytales may build something better than a house: a wild thing that answers to no one; And a man who keeps his gates locked and his walls high, may learn to fill his fortress only after she shows him how.
