A Thousand Kisses Deep - Hardcover

by Daphne Redd (Author)

"A burnout is not a breakdown. Sometimes, it's a beginning."

After twenty years in social work - carrying other people's trauma, filling out forms for children she couldn't save, and running on two hours of sleep - Amber boards a flight to a small coastal town with a suitcase full of shorts, a cigar-box altar, and no plan beyond breathing. She doesn't expect the sea. She doesn't expect quiet. And she certainly doesn't expect Elsie.

Tall, composed, and carrying a calm authority that stops Amber mid-sentence at a sun-warmed bistro table, Elsie is everything Amber never let herself want: a woman who leads with certainty, who sees through Amber's wit and wit-as-armor, and who refuses to look away. What begins as a seaside encounter between two strangers slowly becomes something far more complicated - and far more honest - than either woman bargained for.

A Thousand Kisses Deep is a rich, emotionally grounded novel about what happens when a woman who has spent her life saving others finally chooses herself. Threaded with Pagan spirituality, the power dynamics of the Leather lifestyle, and the hard-won wisdom that only comes with age, this is a love story that doesn't flinch - from desire, from grief, from the terrifying vulnerability of being truly seen.

Perfect for readers who want their romance to come with depth, complexity, and a heroine who knows who she is - even when she's learning who she can become.