First published 2024
Ren Gylden has never owned a smartphone or searched the internet for anything. She has, however, read hundreds of books, taught herself to paint, and built a wind power system by hand on the off-grid homestead where she spent most of her twenty-two years. None of those books told her how to navigate the wider world, so when she finally enrolls at Corona College, she arrives equal parts prepared and completely lost. Fitz has a different problem. He knows exactly how the world works and has a precise plan to survive it: graduate near the top of his class, get his criminal record expunged, and keep up the image of the wealthy, confident player his classmates assume he is. A few months stand between him and step one when Ren walks into his life and throws everything sideways. An immunology seminar assignment pairs them together, and soon the two are on a road trip neither planned. Somewhere on the open road, away from the campus where each of them performs a version of themselves, they start to see what they have actually been looking for.
Genres: fiction, coming-of-age, contemporary, adult, adult-fiction, contemporary-romance
Vibes: character-driven, emotional, hopeful, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, forced-proximity, friends-to-lovers, slow-burn
Setting: Corona College, off-grid homestead
Period: contemporary
309 pages · Paperback · Hyperion Avenue