Backstage & Buttercream

Sophie Bennett built her life out of early mornings, flour-dusted countertops, and the kind of quiet discipline that keeps a small bakery alive in London. Her shop-Buttercream Dream Cupcakery-sits a few doors down from the Novello Theatre, close enough to hear the city's night crowd spill out after curtain call, but far enough that Sophie can pretend that world has nothing to do with her.
Until it does.
When Sophie's brother Theo lands a role in Mamma Mia! at the Novello, Sophie promises herself she'll keep her distance: smile at opening night, drop off a congratulatory box of cupcakes, then go back to her real life-rent, invoices, and parents who always seem to need "just a little help" to get by.
But George Maddison-Theo's co-star with an easy grin and tired eyes-keeps turning up at Buttercream Dream Cupcakery. At first it's for coffee. Then it's for the cinnamon-sugar cupcakes he claims are "life-saving." Then it's for Sophie herself-the only person in his orbit who doesn't want anything from him.
As Sophie and George slip into something that feels dangerously like hope, Sophie starts to notice the truth hiding in plain sight: her parents aren't broke. They never were. And the life Sophie's been sacrificing to keep them afloat? It was never about survival.
Now Sophie has to choose between the family that raised her on guilt... and the love that's asking her to finally choose herself.