Windfall

Classical linguist Joseph “Grimm” Jaeger may be neither well-known nor well-liked among his peers at his university, but he does have his own office. That’s a cold comfort sometimes between his crushing workload and his tyrannical boss, but Grimm has a long of history of making do with what he has. He’s just not always so good at holding onto it.

When his boss springs a brand new project and an absolutely unwelcome officemate on him, Grimm finds himself hard-pressed to adapt. The project is as nebulous as it is pointless and his new officemate and rival researcher, Key Haddock, proves to be a bit much for even the world-weary Grimm to handle. Key serves up equal portions of soothing tea and scathing commentary on a daily basis, and the two have endless opportunities to get under each others’ skin—or at least under Grimm’s. Key remains unfazed, no matter how often Grimm attempts to rile him back, until their joint project takes a turn for the worst and an unexpected encounter outside of work forces the two to spend a weekend—and then more—together.

Grimm keeps plenty to himself, but he quickly learns that Key has secrets of his own and that they share more common ground than either of them would have thought possible. As work and happenstance push them into closer and closer quarters Grimm abruptly begins to see Key in a new light, but no matter how sudden the onset of attraction, the process of falling for a colleague and roommate kicks up more than the expected amount of emotional dust. As his future begins to look less and less certain, Grimm is forced to delve into his own foggy past—for his sake, and for Key’s.

Slow-burning and laced with cheeky humor, in-jokes, and wordplay, Windfall unravels as a cozy, sensuous mystery and an intensely intimate view into the small cast’s tragic pasts and intriguing inner lives.