Melissa Ferguson’s new novel proves that good fences make good neighbors-and that sometimes love and hate share a backyard.

Free-spirited Bree Leake doesn’t want to be tied down. She’s had more jobs than she can count-and the next stop on her journey is the nation’s oldest live performance theater in Abingdon, Virginia. Just when it’s time to move on again, Bree’s parents make her an offer: hold steady in Abingdon for one full year, and they will give her the one thing she’s always wanted-her grandmother’s cabin. She feels like her dreams are coming true.

But life at the theater throws her some curve balls.

And then there’s her new neighbor-Chip McBride.

Chip is the man everyone in town seems to love, yet he’s nothing but a thorn in Bree’s side. She would move heaven and earth to have him out of her life, but according to the bargain she’s struck, she cannot move out of her house. So begins Bree’s obsessive new mission: to drive Chip out of the neighborhood-and fast.

Bree isn’t the only one who’s a wee bit competitive, and as Chip registers what Bree’s up to, he’s more than willing to fight fire with fire. But as their pranks escalate, both of their fragile job ambitions start to wobble. And it doesn’t help that the line between love and hate is starting to blur.

In Melissa Ferguson’s latest rom-com, two enemies find something they never expected in one another-taking all’s fair in love and war to a hilarious and heartwarming new level.