A witty, wistful romance brimming with heart and hard-won second chances…
Returning home after years away forces a guarded young woman to revisit the friendship that once changed the course of her life in Exley’s poignant romantic drama. Tulsa Wakefield grows up in an unconventional household filled with books, elaborate games, and a firm set of personal Rules. When Max Griffin unexpectedly enters that sheltered world, he becomes her closest companion and an increasingly complicated presence. Years later, a struggling Tulsa inherits her childhood home, where the past proves impossible to keep safely contained.
Exley is especially adept at capturing the intensity of formative relationships and the emotional pull of childhood places. Tulsa and Max’s bond develops through shared stories, literary conversations, teasing, and make-believe, giving their connection a persuasive, lived-in quality. Whimsy runs through the novel, but with purpose: Tulsa’s games and invented worlds become a revealing expression of how she processes experience and forms emotional bonds. Equally affecting is Exley’s portrayal of family, as affection, memory, and loss become inseparable from Tulsa’s understanding of home.
An emotionally generous portrait of memory, imagination, and the people who become home.
Pub date December 16, 2022
ISBN 978-1954448100
Print length 412 pages
Price $11.99 Paperback, $6.50 Kindle edition
