Hot Dogs and Handies

A funny, high-heat M/M small-town beach romance about rival food vendors, fresh starts, and the dangerous power of a man with good forearms.

He came to Saltwick Bay with a business plan. The hot dog guy was not part of it.

Grant Mercer knows sausages. He knows sourcing, inventory systems, flavor profiles, and exactly how much mustard a man can make before admitting his life has gone off-script. What he doesn’t know is how to run a food cart on a beach in June. After leaving his marriage, his consulting career, and the careful life that stopped fitting, Grant arrives in Saltwick Bay with an artisan sausage cart, twelve house-made mustards, and a desperate need to become someone new.

Then he parks next to Joel Watts. Joel runs Wiener Takes All, a loud, ridiculous hot dog truck with terrible puns, actual ketchup, a loyal crowd, and a body Grant is absolutely not equipped to handle before coffee. Joel is everything Grant isn’t—relaxed, local, shameless, easy with people, and infuriatingly good at making customers want what he’s selling. Grant has a plan. Joel has forearms. The summer is going to be a problem.

• • •

Rival food carts. Beach-town chaos. One summer neither man planned for.

Saltwick Bay was supposed to be Grant’s reset—a new town, a new business, a new version of himself with clean signage, premium ingredients, and a controlled path forward. Instead, he gets sand in his mustard, a market full of locals who already know each other, and a direct competitor whose menu includes more dick jokes than any business plan can reasonably absorb.

Joel knows the town, the crowd, the wind off the water, and exactly how to get under Grant’s skin. The competition turns into banter, the irritation turns into heat, and a summer market rivalry becomes something neither man can keep pretending is only about food. Grant didn’t come to Saltwick Bay looking for love. He came looking for proof that wanting something again wouldn’t ruin him. Joel might be the first thing he wants without knowing how to explain why.

Hot Dogs and Handies opens The Saltwick Bay Romances, a funny, high-heat M/M beach romance built on the collision between Grant’s controlled reinvention—clean signage, twelve mustards, a plan for everything—and Joel’s shameless local ease, which no spreadsheet survives. The Saltwick Bay Romances continue with Hot Cross Buns.

Book One begins with a missing vendor spot—and a shirtless competitor who knows exactly where to put his truck.

Continue The Saltwick Bay Romances

Book 1: Hot Dogs and Handies — Grant came to town with twelve mustards and a business plan. Joel had forearms.

Book 2: Hot Cross Buns — Theo has built a quiet life. Then the man who broke him walks back into it.

Book 3: Hot Nuts and Bolts — Eli knows how to fix almost anything. Ronan might be the one problem he can’t solve.

Browse The Saltwick Bay Romances →