At Heartbound, books have always been a part of our lives—but in 2023, they became something more.

It started when Ayesha got hooked on Catharina Maura’s Windsors series and couldn’t stop raving about it. We tried to hunt down physical copies through a big name retailer and came up empty. Eventually, we found them at an indie romance bookstore, but it was a bit of a drive. Somewhere between “should we road trip just for these books?” and “why isn’t this near us?” we joked about starting one ourselves right here in Orange County.

That little joke turned into something bigger. Owning a bookstore had always been a dream floating around in our family, and this felt like the sign to finally go for it. A few months (and a lot of research and serious conversations) later, we took the leap and opened Heartbound.