Burnt Hearts

At seventeen, Ellie Whitmore is counting down the days until she can escape the ruins of the life she once knew. Before the fire, she lived in a wealthy, loving household. Before the fire, she had parents who smiled at her. Before the fire, her grandmother protected her.

Now, everything is ash.

After the family's luxury candle-making factory burns to the ground-along with the future it promised-Ellie becomes the perfect scapegoat. Her parents, once kind, now treat her like a burden to be hidden: withholding food, refusing her clothing, and humiliating her behind closed doors. In public, they pretend she chooses her shabby appearance. At home, they remind her she ruined everything.

But Ellie keeps a secret of her own: she's been in love with her neighbour Tyler Graves for as long as she can remember.

Tyler, with his messy dark hair and tired eyes, doesn't believe in love. How could he, when his parents barely speak and his father cheats openly? After his mother's death-only weeks after the Whitmore fire-he shuts himself off from anything real, seeking distraction in girls who mean nothing to him. Including Ellie's beautiful, manipulative sister.

Told through present-day turmoil and haunting flashbacks, Ellie pieces together how her golden childhood turned to cinders-and why everyone is so desperate to blame her. As she and Tyler grow closer in the shadows of their shared loneliness, their fragile connection is threatened by secrets that could destroy them both.

Because the fire wasn't Ellie's fault.
But the truth is far more dangerous.
And when it finally rises from the ashes, it will change everything.

Burnt Hearts is a dramatic, emotionally charged dark romance set in modern-day UK-where love is risky, trust is fragile, and some scars are burned too deep to heal.