Drawn To Us: An Irish Romantic Comedy

When a coffee-splashed meet-cute collides with a house full of kids, an artist and a novelist have to figure out if love can be sketched in—even when real life refuses to stay inside the lines.On Ireland’s wild east coast, the village of Brannagh Bay runs on gossip, tide tables, and the world’s most chaotic community calendar. Evelyn Hart—bestselling romance novelist, world-class procrastinator—has come for a quiet month to finish a book and prove to herself (and her editor) that happy endings still exist off the page. Instead, her first morning produces a catastrophe: one lidded Americano, one very nice stranger, and one humiliating splash heard ’round the café.
Callum is a widowed animator with three brilliant, opinionated kids, two sketchbooks, and exactly zero spare minutes. He’s learned to keep the mess contained—until Evelyn barrels into town with a smile that belongs on a poster and a knack for making his sensible plans feel suddenly… negotiable. Their first encounter is a disaster. The pull is instant. The banter is terminal. And from there, the village offers them no mercy: a school art fair, a charity ceilidh, a wind-lashed picnic that becomes a sprint through rain, and a treehouse that absolutely does not meet building codes but somehow feels like a chapel.
Evelyn writes heroines who say the thing; in person, she’s better at running. Callum has perfected gentle steadiness; falling again is the one risk he swore he wouldn’t take. Between them stands a small, unstoppable union of matchmakers—children who have notes on Evelyn’s plot, a grandmother with an extra key, and a dog who refuses to heel for anyone but her. Drawing lines never works: “your family” keeps blurring into “ours,” sketches turn into portraits, and a private joke becomes every-day shorthand for staying.
As deadlines loom and old griefs surprise them both, Evelyn must decide whether the book she’s writing is a refuge or a dare. And Callum, who has kept his heart safe by keeping it quiet, has to choose if loving someone new means letting the past be part of the picture rather than the whole frame. The salt air complicates everything. So does the moonlight. And so do three small voices outside the door asking if they can have brownies for breakfast if they promise to behave at the gallery opening. (They cannot. They try anyway.)
Set against bays and bogs and blue-hour skies, Drawn to Us is a bright, big-hearted Irish rom-com about second chances, found family, and the art we make when we stop editing ourselves. Expect sparkling banter, meddling villagers with clipboards, disaster picnics, a rope-bridge treehouse that becomes a wish, and a kiss that finally makes sense of the whole messy page.
Tropes & vibes: single dad • small-town hijinks • found family • sunshine-meets-steadfast • slow-burn to swoon • creative rivals to co-conspirators • kids with an agenda • disaster meet-cute (coffee) • treehouse vows (eventually).
Read if you love: Emily Henry’s warmth, Sophie Kinsella’s comedic timing, and the coastal charm of Maeve Binchy with a modern, flirty kick.
Content & promise: closed-door to warm kisses/innuendo; themes of grief, co-parenting, and healing; no cliffhanger; HEA guaranteed. Standalone novel.