Some towns hide their secrets.
Timber Hollows practically serves them with coffee and pastries.
Nestled deep in the pine forests of East Texas, Timber Hollows is the kind of town where people still wave from passing trucks, local gossip travels faster than the internet, and everyone eventually finds their way to Groovy Grounds Café. Between the smell of fresh espresso, warm cinnamon rolls, and the steady comfort of familiar faces, Groovy Grounds has become the unofficial heart of the community.
For Ryan Mooney, that was always enough.
Good coffee.
Good people.
Quiet mornings.
And maybe a little less drama than life usually insisted on providing.
Unfortunately, life had other plans.
When a local theater production of Hamlet becomes overshadowed by rumors, rivalries, exhaustion, and growing tensions behind the scenes, Timber Hollows suddenly finds itself facing tragedy once again. What begins as an apparent accident quickly unravels into something far more personal, exposing grief, obsession, loneliness, and the dangerous stories people create when they desperately want to feel seen.
As Ryan and Cody Barrett begin untangling the truth, they discover that the theater world isn’t only built on performances staged beneath bright lights. Sometimes the most convincing roles are the ones people perform in everyday life.
And sometimes the hardest thing in the world is letting someone see who you really are.
Filled with cozy coffee shop charm, small-town warmth, found family, slow-burn romance, theatrical chaos, emotional healing, and murder, Alas, Poor Max welcomes you back to Timber Hollows, where the coffee is hot, the gossip travels fast, and even grief becomes a little easier to carry when nobody has to carry it alone.