Book Title: Match Made
Author: TA Moore
Publisher: Rogue Firebird Press
Cover Artist: Tammy Moore
Release Date: May 26, 2026
Tense/POV: Third person, alternating POV
Genres: Contemporary MM Romance/Romantic Comedy
Tropes: Matchmaking, Black Cat/Golden Retriever, Love at First Sight, Second Chance Romance, Found Family
Themes: Love after Loss, Taking the win, even when you don’t think you deserve it, the way people fit
Heat Rating: 3 flames
Length: 50 000 words
It is a standalone story and does not end on a cliffhanger.
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Cupid might be free, but Match Made takes direction
Blurb
Cupid has a help desk
Alaskan pilot Quentin Hannigan is good at his job, but not so great with people. He’s the last man anyone who knows him would expect to fall in love at first sight. Until he does. Hard.
Just one problem.
Joe Kendrick, widower and frazzled dad of three, does not have the bandwidth for this. Between his kids, his trainwreck of a sister, and bills that keep piling up, the last thing he needs is a too-good-to-be-true, and admittedly very hot, pilot swooping in to play knight in shining armor.
Luckily for the star-crossed couple the world’s premier, and only, covert match-making service is on the case. Match-Made’s highly trained operatives are ready and willing to engineer a happy-ever-after, one way or another.
They just need Quentin and Joe to co-operate…just once!
“Benjy is my nephew,” Joe said as he deconstructed his burger fastidiously. Benjy and Jessie had already wolfed theirs down, plates left with nothing but ketchup smears and gherkins on them, so they could go and play the arcade games in back. That left Joe to carry his side of the conversation. He had already covered his surname—Gardner—and that he’d been late driving in from Gateway, and apparently Quentin lived a vague value of ‘nearby’ to the suburb, due to an accident on the road. The plan had been to avoid spoiling Quentin’s night by talking about anything heavy, but unfortunately, it turned out that Joe didn’t have much small talk these days. “I’m just standing in for the school run and prom rides while my sister is…um…in hospital.”
“Is she OK?” Quentin asked. Then he grimaced. “Sorry. That was a stupid thing to say. Obviously… Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Joe said. “People never know what to say. No one wants to ask outright in case they look nosy, but it would look even worse to just change the subject. Your effort was pretty middling as these things go.”
“Really?” Quentin said. “I hate to think what the worst was.”
Joe didn’t need to mull over the question. He had the list lined up and ready to go.
“That honor goes to her boss,” Joe said. “When I let him know, he said, ‘The things some people do for a sleep-in.’ I think it was meant to be a joke?”
“People should need some sort of license to make jokes in the workplace,” Quentin said. “Or a certification, at least.”
While Joe snorted at that, Quentin scooped a chunk of crab dip up with some of his crostini and offered it to the toddler in his lap.
“Oh, he’ll not–” Joe didn’t even manage to finish the ‘eat that’ before Cody placidly proved him wrong. A lot of crab ended up down him, but it was still a step up from his usual reaction to anything new. “You’re good with kids.”
“Not likely,” Quentin said absently. He picked up his milkshake to take a drink, hooking the straw with his thumb as it reached his mouth. “I’m not even good with people.”
“Children are people.”
Quentin glanced down at Cody and then pulled a ‘huh’ face. “The more you know?”
He looked pleased when Joe laughed. Joe tried not to notice how much he liked that, or the way Quentin’s lips wrapped around the straw as he took that drink. He glanced down at his plate to distract himself.
The taken-apart burger looked back at him.
He winced as he registered that had been what his hands were up to while they talked.
Usually, he didn’t do that on a date when he was eating outside. Not even with close friends and family. It was a quirk he saved for when he was alone. Until tonight, apparently.
As he tried to decide what ‘this is perfectly normal’ track to take, the ‘this is just how I eat them,’ or the ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, the burger has always had no clothes,’ Quentin finished his drink and set the glass down.
Neatly.
On the printed paper coaster.
Joe wasn’t going to claim that was sexier than the mouth and the shoulders, but also it wasn’t not sexy. That was something he’d need to wrestle with later. He used to go to clubs, and now he was biting his lip over someone adulting out in the open.
TA Moore is a Northern Irish writer of romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and contemporary romance novels. A childhood in a rural, seaside town fostered in her a suspicious nature, a love of mystery, and a streak of black humour a mile wide.
Coffee, Doc Marten boots, and good friends are the essential things in life. Spiders, mayo, and heels are to be avoided.
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