Lazarra Rayburn doesn’t believe in love at first sight—or love at second or third, for that matter. A fiercely independent environmental investigator with a sharp tongue and a scar to match, Laz has spent her career rooting out corruption and avoiding emotional entanglements. She’s more comfortable dodging shady clients and analyzing soil samples than navigating matters of the heart. When a routine case brings her into contact with Russell White—a wry, secretive man with eyes that see more than Laz wants to reveal—she brushes him off as just another complication. But a second encounter, this time over lamb shanks and hummus in a Palm Springs café, begins to unravel her carefully constructed distance. What starts as witty banter and wary company soon becomes a shared journey across states, into the tangled lives of friends, strangers, and long-buried memories. From the cafes of California to stormy nights in Nashville and quiet beaches on the Atlantic coast, Laz begins to uncover something even more unsettling than government fraud: the fragile possibility of trust. As she crosses paths with a fiery ex-wife, a radiant young mother-to-be, a cast of old friends, and one haunting fortune cookie after another, Laz is forced to confront the truths she’s buried about herself and the relationships she thought she didn’t need. Hearts and Hidden Agendas is a wry, romantic, emotionally rich story told through the sharp eyes of a woman who’s fought hard to stay detached—and now must choose whether to stay safe or fall in love. With humor, grit, and a hesitant grace, Laz must face the hardest truth of all: sometimes, to save yourself, you have to risk your heart. In a world built on secrets, the greatest danger is love. Perfect for readers who devour morally complex fiction, hidden truths, and character-driven suspense, Hearts and Hidden Agendas belongs beside books by Ian McEwan, Kate Morton, and Robert Penn Warren.