Twelve Summers, One Heartbeat

Lacquerware is a craft handed down from master to apprentice, and it is possible to share a master with a senior apprentice you have never met. Sophia's master was accused of copying another artist's work and took his own life. Sophia, who carries on his craft, has since lost both a boyfriend and a career. She goes back to her hometown and opens a small lacquerware shop. The one person who might know what happened to her master is that senior apprentice, and she starts looking for him. Meanwhile a blind date puts her across a table from Trevor, a tattoo artist. Her ex-boyfriend has been turning up and refusing to leave her alone, so she asks Trevor to pose as her boyfriend, and he agrees. They spend a good deal of time together and the arrangement stops being an act. Trevor is the senior apprentice she has been looking for, and he is also her ex-boyfriend's cousin. He first saw Sophia twelve years ago and has kept an eye on her from a distance ever since, waiting for her to come into her own and helping her without letting her see it. He backs her entry in the national lacquerware competition, where she has a chance to clear her master's name, and the two of them dig into the master's death and the old quarrels of the previous generation that lie behind it.