Can two men move past their shattered dreams and create a new future together?

Corduroy Lopez is a hard-working man. He has to be. There really is no alternative. He’s a single father with a beautiful, special needs daughter to support. His mother and grandmother help when they can, but he’s a proud pan man who is determined to make it on his own. When his daughter is accepted into a prestigious developmental education preschool, Cord needs cash and he needs it yesterday. One night, offhandedly, the cute owner of the new bookstore in town mentions wanting to start a drag story hour, Cord leaps at the chance. He’s done drag before. Once. Performing on stage at the Campo hadn’t really been his thing but donning a wig and dress to sing children’s songs while strumming a ukulele should be a much more enjoyable experience. Also, the bookshop owner is adorable, newly single, and spending a great deal of time sitting at Cord’s bar sipping virgin piña coladas after the bookstore closes.

Jagger Collins never meant to end up here. He’d been a happily married man with a swanky job in a Philadelphia bank just two years ago. Then the bottom fell out of his life. His marriage combusted, his job quickly followed, and he found himself with only his dog Hamish, his brother, and half the cash from the home he thought he would be starting a family in. Taking the advice of his elder sibling to heart, he left the big city and bought a small brick building in downtown Wilmington. Trading in ties for tomes, Jagger is now embracing the simpler things in life. Reading, biking, knitting, and admiring the lithe bartender at the Campo Royale. Cord is ticking all the right boxes in a big way, but Jagger’s not sure if he’s ready to put his heart on the line again.

The Barkeep and the Bookseller is a single father guy next door gay romance that features a hard-working dad, a learning-to-love again bookdealer, a precocious preschooler, high heels, a loving family, flashy floral fashions, and a ukulele rich happy-ever-after.