Claire Hastings

Claire Hastings writes contemporary romance, often placing new relationships inside small communities and interconnected series. Cakewalk is the third Busy Bean novel and follows cake decorator Gigi Hawthorne after an interrupted journey leaves her in a Vermont town. Her work at the Busy Bean and tenancy with former footballer Holden St. James create the practical closeness around which their guarded relationship develops. Published in 2021 by Heart Eyes Press within the World of True North, the book shares its setting with contributions by other romance writers while retaining Hastings's own central couple. Her wider catalogue includes the Hickory Hills series, the Hayes Family books, the Indigo Royal Resort sequence, and romances connected to the Atlanta Rising Football Club. That range repeatedly links place, work, and social circles to courtship. In Cakewalk, baking and the coffee shop are not merely decorative details: they provide Gigi with a route toward independence and connect two people carrying private histories into a visible community.