The Match

Evie works at Southern Service Paws, an organization that pairs people with service dogs. Her job has a personal side: she lived with epilepsy herself. So when an email arrives from a young girl named Sam, asking for a dog of her own, Evie takes the case without hesitation.

There is a complication. Sam wrote the request on her own, and her father, Jacob, knows nothing about it. Evie's first meeting with him goes badly. She keeps coming back anyway, spending time with the family and helping Sam form a bond with Daisy, a golden retriever.

As the weeks pass, Evie starts to want something she has never allowed herself: a family. Jacob is raising Sam alone, and he knows that falling for the woman who walked into his life is the one thing he should avoid.

This is a romantic comedy with a sweet tone and a closed-door heat level, so the love story stays off the page in the bedroom. It centers on a slow-growing attraction between two people who both have good reasons to hold back, with a child and a dog at the heart of the household. It is the first book in the It Happened in Charleston series.