Potions and Petit Fours: Adult Cozy Romantasy

POTIONS AND PETIT FOURS is my Adult Cozy Romantasy manuscript that combines the ancient gods of Irish mythology with the Regency romance of Bridgerton. (Think Benedict and Sophie if Sophie worked at a bakery instead of being a lady's maid.)

It has the slow-burn friends-to-lovers love story of Heather Fawcett's Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries and the cozy fantasy of Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree.

Tess Aisling's family bakery in Tír Na nÓg (the Irish Underworld) grants wishes through magic pastries that make dreams come true. While Tess would prefer courting like others her age, once her father becomes mysteriously ill, she promises she won't let the family bakery fail. But when Rian, a new (and annoyingly handsome) customer, doesn't have a dream, it could destroy their reputation and leave Tess's family destitute.

The magic of Tír Na nÓg appears to be vanishing, and Rian Doyle is determined to get to the bottom of it. But before searching for answers, he must satisfy his family's demands and find himself a wife. To speed up the process, he visits Tess's magic bakery and wishes to find the love of his life. When his magic pastry fails and Tess becomes just as desperate to solve the mystery of the disappearing magic, she joins him on his quest, and Rian begins to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he might complete both of his goals at once.

But as shape-shifting creatures, indecipherable maps, and angry goddesses lie in their way, Tess and Rian must grapple with their burgeoning feelings for each other. If they don't, they'll not only sacrifice the magic but quite possibly their immortality.

Opening Scene

I promised my father that I wouldn’t let my magic die.

Or the bakery fail.

I finished loading eighty-eight boxes of petit fours and pastries into the back of a wagon destined for the Byrnes’ annual ball, crawled out of the back, and closed the door on the sugary dough wafting out into the crisp autumn air, hoping that nothing would jostle on the trip. We couldn’t afford any mistakes for our biggest customer yet, especially as the bakery had struggled since Imbolc. My first chance to change the bakery’s fate had to succeed.

“We have a problem,” Hazel called.

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Hearing these words made my heart want to crumble like a scone. Couldn’t things go right for once?

Favorite Line

Hoping to get an agent and get this out into the world!