Cupid's Curse
By Julian Frost
A yellow carnation. A missing ledger. A Valentine curse with murder at its heart.
Grant Evans returned to Rosewood Harbor to fix broken things, not uncover the secrets buried beneath them. When Leo Hartman, the town's beloved florist and the closest thing Grant had to family, is found dead inside his shop, the police call it natural causes. Grant sees a missing black ledger, a strange phone call, and a yellow carnation clutched in Leo's hand like a warning.
Philip Mak has built his life around order, archives, and locked doors. As Rosewood Harbor's careful, guarded librarian, he prefers research to risk and quiet records to public scandal. But when Grant brings him a mystery no one else wants to solve, Philip is drawn into a trail of town documents, old grudges, coded flowers, and a 1955 journal that gives the so-called Cupid's Curse a chilling new shape.
As Valentine's Day approaches and the town prepares for its annual gala, the clues begin to point toward a secret someone has protected for decades. The deeper Grant and Philip dig, the more Rosewood Harbor's charm gives way to suspicion, civic corruption, and danger hiding in plain sight. Every answer brings them closer to the truth, and closer to whoever is willing to kill to keep it buried.
Caught between grief, fear, and a slow-burn attraction neither man expected, Grant and Philip must decide how much they are willing to risk for justice and for each other. Rosewood Harbor may whisper that the curse has returned, but curses do not kill. People do.
Cupid's Curse is a mystery-forward MM romantic suspense novel featuring an amateur-sleuth partnership, a guarded librarian hero, an openhearted handyman hero, small-town secrets, floral clues, and a rain-soaked Oregon coastal setting with a warm emotional core.
