Fool Me Once

With this tension-fueled love story set in the world of Texas politics, Winstead (In My Dreams I Hold a Knife) pivots from murder mysteries to rom-coms. Hypercompetent Lee Stone—the hard-partying Stoner to her college friends—is a competitive and driven woman committed to friends, fun, and her career as communications director for an electric car company. But after what she thinks of as her “Four Great Heartbreaks,” she’s uninterested in romantic commitments. Ben Laderman, number four on Lee’s list, has come a long way since Lee broke both his heart and his focus just when he needed to keep his spot at the top of his law school class. Now he’s working with the Texas governor on his Green Machine bill—which happens to be Lee’s political passion project. With both her bill and the promotion she hopes it will bring suddenly tied to Ben, Lee panics, convinced Ben plans to steal her project as revenge for the way they broke up. But as they’re forced to work together, it becomes clear that she’s fooling herself if she thinks she’s over him. Sparks fly and laughs abound as Winstead rides the line between enemies-to-lovers and second-chance romance tropes. Readers will want to snap this up. Agent: Melissa Edwards, Stonesong. (Apr.)