REVIEW: From the Ground Up by Harper Robson (Hot Dam Homes #1)

- October 13, 2026

FROM THE GROUND UP

Hot Dam Homes - Book One

by Harper Robson

Release Date: April 29, 2022

Review

This is a really good read. Sweet, fun, and some swoon.

I enjoyed this first book in Harper’s Hot Dam Homes. And I love the premise. Hollywood star buys a house that needs some love. In walks a sexy construction worker.

There was some great growth and learning, and of course, a happy ever after.

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Synopsis

The house isn't the only thing that needs to be torn down to the studs.

MASON

I have one rule: always have an exit strategy. I'm a contractor. I show up, do the work, and walk away. By this point I'm practically an expert in walking away.

Then my brother sends me to pitch a job at an old house on the shores of Lake Washington, and I walk straight into Jackson Cullen. Yep, that Jackson Cullen, the British movie star at the top of my hall pass list. Ten minutes later I'm pulling him out of a rotten boat dock with my hands in places I've only dreamed about.

He's going to be in that house for six months while we rebuild it. I'm going to be in it with him.

My exit-strategy is starting to look like a fairy tale.

JACKSON

I came to Seattle to disappear.

LA broke something in me that I can't name, and a 1970s lake house with pumpkin-orange wallpaper and a view of the water is the closest I've come to peace in years. I want quiet. I want a home. I want to figure out who I am when the cameras aren't watching.

What I didn't plan for was the six-foot-five contractor who keeps catching me staring at his... tattoos.

Since my wife passed away, I've let the world believe I'm a straight widower with an empty social calendar. It's not a total lie.

If we're going to do this, we have to do it in the dark.

From the Ground Up is the first book in the Hot Dam Homes series. A forced-proximity, closeted-celebrity, opposites-attract MM romance with blue-collar swoon, a rotten boat dock, and a happy ending earned the hard way.

About Harper Robson

Harper Robson grew up dreaming of being a writer, but that didn’t work out until she was in her mid-forties. Along the way she worked in marketing, software development, and spent more than a decade as a stay-home mom.

She grew up in Vancouver, BC, but feels most at home in the leafy green suburbs of Seattle, Washington.

She is mom to two pre-teen boys and two adorable but very naughty Yellow Labs. Her husband works in the tech industry, and he makes her laugh every day.

A true PNW girl, Harper loves the rain, but is always planning her next beach vacation.

Her favorite things include classic rock, watching the Seattle Kraken, her two dogs, and drinking champagne for no reason at all.

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