Coming December 1, 2026
A love story for women who were never meant to choose their own lives.
Two fiercely capable women build an unconventional household—and discover a love powerful enough to withstand gossip, danger, and the expectations of their world.
An Improper Arrangement
In a severe old house, a family begins to take shape.
Philippa Godwin is a wealthy, fiercely independent mill owner who has spent her adult life protecting her estate, her work, and her freedom from the men who believe all three would be better placed in male hands. When the sudden death of her younger sister leaves Philippa guardian to Jamie, a frightened nine-year-old boy recovering from an abusive home, she is forced to make room in her ordered life for a child she does not know how to raise.
Rose Sutton arrives at Godwin House seeking employment as Jamie’s governess, accompanied by her lively young daughter, Clara. A widowed mother with little money and no family to rely upon, Rose is warm, practical, intelligent, and unwilling to let Philippa dismiss her without a proper interview.
What begins as an arrangement of necessity gradually becomes something neither woman expected. Rose brings warmth, laughter, and family into the severe old house. Philippa gives Rose and Clara safety, respect, and a place where they are valued. As they share responsibility for the children, their mutual admiration develops into a slow, deeply sensual romance.
Their growing household is threatened by a fire at Philippa’s new mill, a business rival eager to seize her assets, local gossip, and societal pressure. An Improper Arrangement is an adult sapphic historical romance about class, power, female independence, forbidden desire, and two women choosing an unconventional life together. It has open-door intimacy and a hard-won happy ending.
For advance readers
Read it before release day.
The Booksprout ARC campaign opens September 15, 2026.
Claim an ARC on Booksprout“Romances in which women like us are allowed to be complicated, ambitious, difficult, deeply desired, and fully centered in their own love stories.”
About the authors
Meet M.J. Fallon
M.J. Fallon is the joint pen name of two married lesbian writers who have been devoted romance readers for most of their lives.
M and J met through a shared love of stories, began writing together fifteen years ago, and gradually realized that the books they most wanted to read were often the ones they could not find: romances in which women like them were allowed to be complicated, ambitious, difficult, deeply desired, and fully centered in their own love stories.
That realization led them to sapphic romance. Together, they write love stories about women who challenge convention, navigate power, and create lives that the world around them may not have imagined for them. Their work is grounded in the belief that queer women deserve stories filled not only with struggle and grief, but with intimacy, passion, partnership, and lasting happiness.
Contact
We’d love to hear from you.
For reader mail, book inquiries, or anything else, send us a note and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
Available December 1