Love and Clockwork by Essie Sloane

One hopeless romantic elf (emphasis on the hopeless.)
One ambitious merchant elf (emphasis on the ambitious.)
One week that changes everything.

Oleander has been to the Everend Market exactly once. He was a young boy, brought along to help with his parents’ apothecary. It was, like most things in Oleander’s life, a disaster, and his parents never allowed him to go back with him. However, now, he’s an adult, and he knows what he wants. He wants to find love. He wants to get married. He wants his life to contain more than a small Emberleigh dwelling for one and a series of odd jobs in the city’s shops. Where better to find this love than the Everend Market?

Castien is a regular at the Everend Market. He runs a stall selling the same time pieces his father sold before him… and some pleasure devices of his own creation hidden behind a curtain. He is content traveling to market with his sibling, Acantha, and spending the week earning coin from the elves of the realm. While others may find his life small, he prefers it this way: quiet, contained, and full of learning.

But when Oleander stumbles his way into Castien’s stall, knocking over a display and causing a stir, they recognize one another. They met, once, as boys, and now, as men, they are reconnecting. Castien is meant to help Oleander find his spouse, but the more time he spends with him, the more time he realizes he doesn’t want to watch him leave with someone else.

Marriage Market Misadventures is a light hearted series of queer romances where elves from all over the realm gather at the Everend Midsummer Markets to meet, match, and marry—with plenty of shenanigans along the way! Love and Clockwork is a low angst MM romantasy featuring a socially awkward merchant, an elf that fails at everything, a childhood kiss, and a week that could change both of them forever.