Build Me Up

Lili Grouse’s stand-alone funny small-town romance “Build Me Up” has a slow burn. The protagonist of the tale is Kristen Barnes, a prosperous Californian architect and designer of homes who gets recruited to work on a unique project in a tiny Massachusetts town.

There in addition to an abundance of cats, she meets man-sized, stubble-coated, toolbox-equipped peril. Readers characterize the work as “sweet” or “clean,” with references to personal relationships but without any explicit imagery.