Practice Vows

Practice Vows is a big-city romance about building a life that actually holds. Divorce mediator Talia Mendes keeps other people's promises from collapsing. Carpenter-foreman Jonah Keating makes broken rooms stand again. When their neighborhood decides to save Mosaic Row Hall, the pair co-author a "practice marriage" contract to keep the volunteer crew kind-and accidentally give themselves a scaffold for intimacy: weekly State-of-Us check-ins, a revocable consent menu, and repair protocols that work better than grand gestures.
Blending households with Talia's daughter and Jonah's son is beautiful chaos; taking in an infant through foster-to-adopt makes love bigger-and sleep smaller. After a small wedding and a very public work win, success turns into hurry. Talia feels unseen long before Jonah realizes he's mistaking provision for presence. A trial separation-with guardrails-becomes their laboratory for change. When adoption day finally arrives, they've rewritten more than their vows: they've learned how to choose each other in the ordinary.
Practice Vows is warm heat, zero cynicism-about consent as romance, repair over being right, and the family you build on purpose. Perfect for fans of slow burn, caretaking tenderness, and marriage-in-trouble arcs with a real HEA.