The Rules We Keep

At fifty-three, Dawn Aspinall knows exactly which walls can come down. The harder question is whether she's brave enough to dismantle the rules she's lived by for decades.

After the end of a twenty-seven-year marriage, accomplished interior architect Dawn buys a neglected brownstone and sets out to rebuild it-and herself. Then she hires Max Henshaw, a thirty-seven-year-old contractor who's practical, patient, infuriatingly perceptive, and entirely unbothered by the sixteen years between them.

As dusty walls reveal long-hidden secrets and a forgotten love story, Dawn finds herself questioning everything she's been taught about women, aging, desire, and second chances. Max sees the woman standing in front of him, not the number Dawn can't stop calculating, but trusting his feelings means risking something far more frightening than gossip: believing she deserves a love she chose entirely for herself.

Warm, tender, and filled with slow-burning chemistry, friendship, laughter, and the messy beauty of beginning again, The Rules We Keep is a later-in-life romance about discovering that some things are worth restoring-and some rules were always meant to be broken. Step inside Dawn's brownstone and fall in love with a second chance built to last.