Powerless: A Small Town Friends to Lovers Romance

Sloane Winthrop, an aspiring ballerina who lives in the city, is 11 when she first arrives at Wishing Well Ranch in Chestnut Springs to spend the summer with her cousins (Violet, Cade, Beau, and Rhett) while her parents are vacationing in Europe. Another boy, Jasper Gervais, is with the others, and Violet explains, “He’s one of us now” (3). Jasper came to live with the Eatons after a tragic event occurred in his family. Violet tells Sloane to treat him like a “new cousin,” but Sloane can’t stop staring at his sad, blue eyes.

The narrative skips forward in time to the present day. An adult Jasper is meeting Sloane and her fiancé, Sterling Woodcock, at a steakhouse on the night before her wedding. Jasper dislikes Sterling and cannot abide the way he speaks to Sloane. Sterling asks Jasper if he hunts, and the question reminds Sloane of the first time she went hunting and cried afterward. Sterling mockingly says that he can’t believe she ever enjoyed being on a ranch. He then toasts his friends, saying, “To keeping women in the kitchen!” (9).

Jasper recalls the moment when Sloane asked him to go to the prom; at the time, he had to say no because he was 24 years old then.