The Pixie and the Jolly Green

The Pixie & The Jolly Green is a contemporary romance novella by Ember Sage, published in April 2026 as the fourth of her Fablehollow Retellings — a run of interconnected standalones that each recast a familiar fairy tale in a modern, small-town setting. This one takes on Jack and the Beanstalk, and the author is explicit that the retelling is modern and non-magical: the beanstalk is a green thumb, and the giant is a very large, very stubborn neighbour.

Jackie Greenbriar has spent her whole life looking after other people — siblings, customers, stray animals. Growing things is what she does best: plants, people, and the occasional stubborn man who insists he does not need help. Thatcher Ridge is that man. Big, broody and absolutely convinced he can handle everything alone, he is proved otherwise by a fall from a tractor, and by the small, determined woman next door who refuses to let him push her away. As Jackie meets him challenge for challenge and glare for glare, Thatcher works out two things: that he does need help, and that he needs her most of all.

The book runs to roughly 84 pages and is a grumpy-sunshine romance in the warm, steamy register Ember Sage is known for. Like the rest of the Fablehollow Retellings it stands alone, ends without a cliffhanger, and carries a guaranteed happily-ever-after.