Diana becomes guardian to her nephew and niece overnight and moves in next door to Dallas — ex-baseball player, generally grumpy, surprisingly good with kids. What grows between them is quiet and real and takes about 600 pages to fully bloom. Mariana Zapata's most emotionally resonant novel.
Low heat, high heart. The romance simmers for hundreds of pages before any action.
Skip if you dislike:
Moods: Slow Burn Emotional Heartwarming Grumpy/Sunshine
Tropes: Grumpy/Sunshine Single Parent Friends to Lovers Neighbors
Yes, complete standalone.
Heavily — the kids are central to the story and the family dynamics are a major draw.
Wait for It is warmer and more emotionally open; Wall of Winnipeg has a more guarded hero.
Every Sort By Cravings guide is written after a full read-through — not scraped from publisher blurbs or Amazon summaries. We map tropes directly from the text, cross-reference BookTok and Goodreads reader reactions across 500+ community posts, and calibrate heat ratings against reader consensus before publishing. Mood tags, spice numbers, and “skip if” notes reflect actual reading experience. Read our editorial standards.
