Description

A Courtship in Quarantine

Paperback – December 9, 2025
by Jem Spears

A tender and clever contemporary romance about two bisexual strangers whose hotel-room isolation becomes the most unexpected beginning of their lives. Perfect for readers who love forced-proximity tension, secret-identity twists, celebrity complications, and stories that find warmth in the strangest corners of a shaken world.

Mattie Redgrave is convinced her mandated quarantine in an Auckland hotel will be the highlight of her brother’s wedding week. No family drama, no travel chaos—just quiet time to catch up on freelance work and finally sink into her towering to-be-read pile. But everything changes when a handwritten letter slips under her door from the mysterious neighbor in the adjoining room. What begins as a harmless exchange quickly becomes a bright pulse of connection she didn’t know she needed.

Raphael Callan, an actor exhausted by relentless publicity and an intrusive ex, hoped New Zealand would offer anonymity and a breath of normal life. When he realizes the intriguing woman from his flight is quarantining next door, he seizes the rare chance to know someone without the glare of celebrity. Their letters become a haven: intimate, funny, honest in ways neither expected.

But isolation ends. And outside their rooms lies a world strained by pandemic upheaval, personal mistakes, old wounds, and the people who once defined them. As Mattie and Raphael step out of quarantine, they must learn whether the fragile, glowing bubble of their epistolary romance can survive the weight of real-world pressures—or whether love born in stillness can thrive in motion.

Featuring two bisexual leads, classic romance tropes, and a heartfelt embrace of pandemic-era uncertainty, A Courtship in Quarantine proves that connection can bloom even when the world stops turning.