Hopeless

Each installment in the series focuses on a different couple, allowing you to follow this story as a standalone narrative without needing to read the earlier books first.

The Chestnut Springs series shares the same fictional universe as the Gold Rush Ranch series, and you may encounter character connections or world-building elements that span across both collections.

It follows Beau Eaton, the town's golden-boy military hero, and Bailey Jansen, a young outcast bartender from the 'wrong' family.

Beau offers Bailey a fake engagement to prove that people would treat her differently as an Eaton; the arrangement starts as a bet and benefits them both before turning into real feelings.

Yes. Hopeless is the fifth and final book in the Chestnut Springs series.

Fake dating/fake engagement, age gap, grumpy-sunshine, small-town class divide, and found family.

Yes — it's an open-door contemporary romance like the rest of the series.

Yes. Every Chestnut Springs book follows a new couple and resolves its own romance, but the Eaton family and their friends recur throughout, so reading in order (Flawless first) is the most rewarding way through the series.