Beard Science

Jennifer Sylvester holds a title she never wanted. In Tennessee she is the reigning Banana Cake Queen, a role pushed on her by an ambitious mother and held in place by a father with strict expectations. She wants out and cannot see a way to leave on her own.

She turns to Cletus Winston, the most enigmatic of the Winston brothers. He agrees to a fake courtship, though he has private reasons for saying yes, and those reasons begin to complicate the arrangement almost at once.

This is contemporary romance, set in the small town of Green Valley, Tennessee. The tone leans on banter and comic misunderstandings, the kind the series is known for, but real emotional stakes sit underneath. Both leads begin with one aim, then slowly learn that their true wants may lie elsewhere.

It is the third full-length novel in the Winston Brothers series, though a reader can pick it up without the earlier books. A spin-off duology, Engagement and Espionage, carries Cletus and Jennifer's story on afterward.