About the Book
Fall in love like it’s 1996.
From USA Today bestselling author Tracy Sumner comes a steamy small-town grumpy/sunshine romance about old scars, found family, and finding your way home when home is the last place you want to be.
Dallas True has built a life out of surviving chaos—war zones, impossible deadlines, and the ghosts that never stop whispering. Now he’s hiding out, the world thinking he’s gone off-grid, when he’s really holed up in the one place no one would think to look: Promise, South Carolina.
He came to Promise once before, a boy looking for family. One cold rejection was enough to send him running.
He tells himself it’s temporary. A place to disappear until the noise dies down. But then he runs into Gabi, the girl who once embodied everything bright and unattainable. The golden cheerleader who shared one secret kiss with the quiet, wrong-side-of-the-tracks boy before he vanished.
Now she’s a single mom opening her first coffee shop inside the True family’s cotton mill renovation, when Dallas is supposed to stay invisible. But Gabi’s still sunlight in motion, all heart and determination, and she’s not about to let him hide.
What begins as reluctant cooperation turns into late nights, sharp words, and the kind of slow-burn attraction that feels a lot like coming undone.
He’s supposed to keep his secrets. She’s finally learning who she really is. And in the town that remembers everything, love might be the one story he can’t outrun.
True Ruin is for readers who love:
grumpy/sunshine • single mom • small-town slow burn • he falls first • one secret kiss • found family • wrong side of the tracks
