Aug 25

Aug 25 Books Publishing This Week

Late August has a way of making you notice summer more carefully. The season is still everywhere—the afternoons are warm, the trees are thick with green leaves, and gardens remain gloriously overgrown—but you can sense the first subtle hints of change. The sunlight has grown softer and more golden, especially toward evening, and darkness arrives just a little earlier than it did a few weeks ago. There is no need to rush toward fall. Summer still has plenty to offer, and perhaps knowing it won't last forever makes you want to pay closer attention to every beautiful detail.

You decide this is the perfect time to begin a new book. Maybe it has been sitting on your nightstand all month, waiting while you finished another story, or perhaps it arrived unexpectedly and immediately caught your attention. You pick it up and study the cover, wondering what memories will eventually become attached to it. Books have a way of collecting pieces of the seasons in which you read them, and you suspect this one will always remind you of these final golden weeks of summer.

You carry it outside with a cold drink and something fresh to snack on. Maybe you have a bowl of berries, slices of watermelon, or one of those perfectly ripe peaches that seem to exist only for a few precious weeks each year. Your glass is filled with iced tea or lemonade, condensation running down the sides as you settle into a shaded chair on the porch or beneath a tree. The air is warm, but a breeze moves through occasionally, stirring the leaves overhead and carrying the scent of grass, flowers, and sun-warmed earth.

For a moment, you don't open the book. Instead, you let yourself sit within the afternoon. Cicadas buzz loudly from somewhere high in the trees, their familiar late-summer chorus filling the spaces between other sounds. A butterfly floats through the garden. Bees move steadily among flowers that have grown a little wild after months of blooming. Somewhere nearby, a sprinkler clicks back and forth across a lawn. You hear a screen door open and close, a dog bark in the distance, and the faint laughter of neighbors enjoying another beautiful day.

Eventually, you open the cover and turn to the first page. You love this moment—the instant before a story becomes familiar. You don't know these characters yet or understand the world you're about to enter. You haven't formed opinions or theories. You don't know which passages you'll underline or which scene you'll find yourself thinking about days later. Everything is possibility, held quietly between the covers.

You begin reading slowly. The first chapter introduces you to a place, a voice, perhaps a problem you already want to understand. Soon you turn another page, and then another. The world around you remains present, but it begins to blend with the one you're discovering in the book. The cicadas become background music. The breeze occasionally lifts a page beneath your fingers. You reach for a piece of fruit without taking your eyes from the paragraph you're reading.

The afternoon begins slipping toward evening almost without your noticing. When you finally glance up, the sunlight has turned a deep, buttery gold, illuminating the tops of the trees and casting long shadows across the lawn. This is the light you always want to remember when winter feels endless—the particular glow of a late-August evening when everything seems softened at the edges.

You return to the book for another chapter. By now, the characters aren't quite strangers anymore. You're beginning to recognize their voices and understand their motivations. A question has formed in your mind, something that will bring you back tomorrow because you need to know what happens next. The story has started weaving itself into your days.

Eventually, you slide a bookmark between the pages and close the cover. The air has cooled slightly, and the first hints of evening have gathered around you. You could go inside, but you don't. Not yet. Instead, you sit with the book resting in your lap and watch the last golden light filter through the trees.

Late August is often treated like a countdown, but you don't want to think of it that way. You would rather think of it as an invitation to savor what remains—to eat the peaches, stay outside until dusk, notice the flowers, and read another chapter beneath the trees.

Summer isn't over. Your new book has only just begun. And for now, there are still plenty of warm, golden pages ahead.

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Books Publishing August 23 - 29

Demons and Diplomacy by Megan Frampton

A tantalizing pact between an ordinary woman and the silver-tongued son of the Devil is all that stands between Britain—and all hell breaking loose.

1851, London. All supernatural species have emerged from hiding, a result of The Great Revelation, led by Her Majesty, the vampiric Queen Victoria, and her dhamphir consort, Prince Albert.

Cora Hastings is the British government’s Species Ombudsman, a human tasked with keeping the peace between supernatural creatures. It’s run-of-the-mill work: enforcing the newly created shifting parameters, negotiating contracts between species, and generally making certain all Londoners are treated equally.

That is, until the Devil himself decides he wants to leave his hellish home and see the results of Prince Albert’s greatest accomplishment, the Great Exhibition. His arrival could upset the uneasy peace between creatures, and worse—he’s brought his son.

The Marquis of Hell is diabolically good-looking, unnaturally perceptive, and, well, a demon. Cora navigates her sinfully seductive diplomatic assignment as best she can, until she catches wind of a secret conspiracy set to come to fruition at the opening of the Great Exhibition. This leaves her with an impossible choice: Either Cora enters an unholy alliance with the Devil’s son, or she watches as her world is torn asunder….

But I Hate Him by Page Powars

From New York Times and #1 Indies bestselling author Page Powars, a sizzling queer YA romcom about academic rivals who face off at the most competitive camp in the country. Perfect for fans of Casey McQuiston and Alice Oseman.

Rory is academic royalty. As the heir to the most successful tutoring company in the world, he can be nothing less than perfect if he wants to gain his parents’ approval. So it's simple. Rory studies harder than anyone else. He does not make mistakes. And he never loses.

Except to Luca Melendez. The infuriatingly good-looking hockey player who wins every academic competition without even trying. When Rory has a very public meltdown, throwing a smoothie at Luca and shattering his own public image in the process – it feels like one more thing Luca ruined. To salvage his reputation, Rory has his sights set on winning the most cutthroat academic camp in the country, BRAIN. There is nothing standing between Rory and the final medal.

Until, Luca Melendez shows up. This means war and Rory has the perfect plan: Make Luca fall in love with him. And then break Luca’s heart right before the final competition.

Wolftamer by Maggie Rapier

Legends don't die.

Saoirse and Faolan's quest for freedom turns into a battle for the fate of their entire world, in this aching and lush conclusion to the Magpie and the Wolf duology.

Faolan has escaped death. Twice.

After a lifetime chasing freedom and legends, he was finally on the brink of becoming one himself when it all went up in flames. Stranded on the Isle of Lost Souls, bound by an oath he did not make, Faolan is plagued by dreams of drowning and a past he swore never to revisit. The pirate in him wants nothing more than to raise hell and run away—but with no ship, and no way to untether his wife, Saoirse, from the land she’s pledged herself to, Faolan is trapped.

And everyone knows who tamed the Wolf.

When their sinister rival King Maccus unveils an ancient godly relic—one with the power to unbalance their entire world—Faolan knows the game has changed. There’s only one person who can hunt down the missing relics before Maccus can, and the Wolf of the Wild will do anything to protect his wife.

Even if that means leaving her behind.

Summer Coven by Kat Hillis and Rosiee Thor

Everyone's favorite vampire odd couple is back for another bloody good time in this new supernatural mystery from the authors of Dead & Breakfast.

Arthur Miller (no relation to the playwright) and his beloved, Salvatore Conte, are settling into their (para)normal lives in Trident Falls. Finally, everything seems to be going swimmingly...business is booming at the inn and Arthur is hard at work on his first case as a private detective: finding their friend Brody's missing mom.

But when a pet psychic is felled by a poisoned potion she (somehow) didn't see coming, Arthur's investigation takes an enchanting turn - and not in a good way. It turns out the psychic was a member of the Celestine Coven, a powerful group of witches who sell their charms for a price. Did the pet psychic find herself on the wrong side of the coven? Or did she trigger someone’s pet peeves with her predictions? It will require all of Arthur's wit and Sal's whimsy to solve this murder, find their missing person, and avoid becoming part of the witches' wicked brew.

The Night Pool by Lauren Lee Smith

The Night Pool is a blood-soaked, page-turning horror set in the Gold Rush West, where three women must battle monsters both human and inhuman to survive—perfect for fans of Alma Katsu’s The Hunger and Victor LaValle’s Lone Women.

The American West is no safe haven for women—least of all in the Gold Rush town of Coloma, California. Not for Clara Tice, the blacksmith’s strange and stubborn daughter. Not for Mei, the healer whose calm presence in the makeshift camp for Chinese immigrants contrasts sharply with her brother’s hard-eyed pursuit of riches. And certainly not for Haloke, a Nisenan shaman’s granddaughter whose native village has been devastated by smallpox, hunger, and the relentless greed of Outsiders.

One night, Clara and Haloke meet at the river’s edge and watch in horror as Clementine Cobbs, the town beauty, is lured across the water. Together they witness something terrible in the Night Pool. Soon after, an unseen attacker descends upon the mining men of Coloma, abandoning heartless bodies one by one. As the gruesome killings in Coloma threaten to incite further violence, Clara, Haloke, and Mei find themselves unlikely allies—without the gangs, guns, or bravado of the men who claim Coloma’s riches. The three women must work together to confront the evil that menaces them from both monsters and men.

A gripping tale of sisterhood, vengeance, and survival, The Night Pool explores the horrors of greed and lust, and the hidden strength of the most vulnerable among us.

You Know Why by J.T. Ellison

From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes a suspenseful domestic thriller about identity, revenge, and the dangerous secrets kept hidden from the ones we love most.

It’s the holidays, and photographer Brooklyn Locke is bound for Italy with her husband, Trey, and their two children. But when Trey vanishes from the airport, missing their connecting flight, their impromptu vacation―and life as she knows it―begins to unravel.

Desperate to find her husband, Brooklyn accepts help from a stranger on the same flight, Eden Barrow. But Eden soon makes a shocking claim. She is the sister of Trey’s first wife, and ten years ago he was the main suspect in her murder.

Struggling to comprehend these accusations, fate delivers one more blow: a violent accident that leaves Brooklyn fighting for her life. With nowhere else to turn, Brooklyn leans on Eden for support. But each kindness feels too rehearsed, feeding her doubts about Eden’s motives and Trey’s true past.

Brooklyn has her own dark history she’d rather forget and confronts an unsettling possibility. Her life is not what it seems, and the truth is a trap―laid by someone waiting for the perfect time to strike.

The Whitechapel Full Moon Society by Elizabeth DeLozier

Set in Victorian London during Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror, this gripping, original novel is perfect for fans of V. E. Schwab, Dana Schwartz, and Sarah Penner.

When Caroline Foster arrives at the Whitechapel Full Moon Society in search of her missing brother, she finds a dilapidated façade belying an interior as opulent as any exclusive gentlemen’s club. In exchange for room and board, Caroline is hired as the Full Moon’s maid, where she is given three orders: don’t ask personal questions, stay out of the iron-barred room on the second floor, and remain in her bedroom from sunup to sundown on the full moon.

But when it is revealed that the previous maid was murdered—an early victim of Jack the Ripper—and her brother has left behind no answers, only more questions, Caroline begins to suspect her hosts might be hiding something. As more bodies turn up with a connection to the Society, Caroline fears she may have unwittingly stumbled into a bedtime story, the kind with monsters and curses, family secrets and ancient lore.

Tantalizing and pulsing, Elizabeth DeLozier’s sophomore novel gives an exciting alternative look into the infamous Jack the Ripper story with a major, supernatural twist.

Keeping Score by Brittany Kelley

Love is on the line, and this goalie is playing for keeps, in this steamy soccer romance from Brittany Kelley, author of Relationship Goals.

Michelle Oxford lives and breathes soccer. After an injury that ended her dreams of going pro, she snagged the next best thing: a position as the director of operations for the LA Aces. And even if it’s not quite what she imagined it would be, it’s still better than cutting out soccer altogether.

The only problem? Carefree, wonder boy goalie, Tristan Gold.

Tristan has wanted more than just friendship with Michelle since the moment he laid eyes on her, but nothing would kill her career faster. When she loses a bet, the team gleefully insists she has to take lessons on “being chill” from Tristan himself.

They couldn’t be more different, but Tristan’s always met her perfectionist tendencies with good-natured goofiness, so she reluctantly agrees. The more time she spends with him, the more she likes what she sees . . . and Michelle starts to think that with him by her side, she could do just about anything—even saying goodbye to the future she thought she always wanted.

Fallen for France by Elizabeth Letts

When a purebred Arabian mare is torn from Morocco and swept into the chaos of World War I France, she becomes the unlikely link between a Moroccan boy on an underdog quest, a French woman fighting to save what she loves, and an English veterinarian hardened by war. As their lives collide, this luminous novel delivers a sweeping story of courage, connection, and resilience that will resonate with readers of The Nightingale and All the Light We Cannot See.

Inspiration: Inspired by a real WWI account from an English veterinarian who treated a Moroccan horse in France—raising the question: how did that horse get there, and what became of it?
Lived History: Letts brings deep personal experience to the novel, having lived in Morocco for over a decade—as a student, Peace Corps volunteer, and later as a newlywed—immersing herself in the culture, language, and landscape she depicts. The character of Beddou is inspired by Letts’s father-in-law, who was sent away as a young child to work as a shepherd. Beddou’s mother draws on Letts’s mother-in-law, who gave birth to thirteen children in a remote Atlas Mountain village, grounding the story in lived family history and generational resilience.

Wicked Wanted Widows by Kimberly Belle, Cate Holahan, and Vanessa Lillie

In the newest installment of the Audible Original Young Rich Widows series, the widows are back, as glamourous as ever, and now...wanted by the law?

This third, thrilling installment of the Young Rich Widows series takes the widows on a treasure hunt worthy of The Da Vinci Code with historically inspired art heists and stolen property dating to the Salem witch trials.

To save Meredith, the widows find themselves breaking out of jails and into graveyards, chasing the ghosts of indentured servants, and racing through pirate tunnels under Providence. New and old loves complicate the plot for all this time around. For Krystle, bringing her friend home risks exposing more of Sal’s criminal past and destroying any chance of a post-prison happily-ever-after. For Justine, it means throwing herself into the crosshairs of both the law and her mother-in-law, threatening custody of her son and the career she needs to give them a fresh start. For Camille, bringing her bestie home tests her responsibilities to her new, found family and the firm she inherited. Pressuring the widows’ loyalty even more are Meredith’s own conflicted feelings about newcomer Grace. Meredith begins to question what she’s really running from—or returning to. Sure, it’s 1988, and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is blaring on the radio.

But maybe bad girls have the real blast. The widows’ genuine bond has gotten them out of sticky situations time and time again. In this treacherous world of liars and thieves, however, their ties to each other will have to withstand the pull of what they want for themselves. And sisterhood might not be enough to save them.

The Shadow Friends by Tess Gerritsen

From New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen comes a harrowing and emotional thriller where ghosts of the Cold War return with a vengeance―and cannot be outrun.

When a renowned disease expert and Russian defector dies mysteriously during a global affairs conference in Purity, Maine, the tight-knit band of former spies in the Martini Club once again sees their quiet coastal retirement interrupted by international intrigue. And when a waitress at the conference hotel is found murdered, Ingrid Slocum sees chilling links to a disastrous mission that nearly killed her three decades ago.

Desperate to uncover the truth, Ingrid’s drawn back into the game by a magnetic ex-CIA colleague―and former lover―who was with her on the long-ago doomed mission. He convinces her to join him, and together they head to Amsterdam to track down her would-be killer.

Ingrid’s frantic husband Lloyd and Maggie Bird are close behind, but a clandestine network of assassins is intent on stopping them. Forced to question every allegiance, the Martini Club must rely on the skills they tried to leave behind. Because in this game of revenge and deception, the past never dies―it just hides in the shadows.

Hellbound by Stephanie Binx

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here, but nobody knows why—not even the devils themselves. Now sadistic demons roam the earth, offering small fortunes to any mortal sucker dumb or desperate enough to die on their behalf as they retrieve artifacts from a Hell they can’t recall. Washed-up journalist Marian Meyer is one of those mortal suckers dying for a living as she fetches clues for a demonic puzzle that she doesn’t care to solve.

Riddled with debt she'll never be able to pay off and guilt over her mother's death, Marian made her first lucrative deal with a demon and never looked back. Never mind that being a Hell-diver means that she must voluntarily drown herself or that the human body wasn’t meant to die more than once—and she’s definitely feeling it.

Unfortunately, the last time Marian went to Hell, she came back wrong. Memories of that night are missing, and she'll do anything she can to find them, including teaming up with one of her mysterious (and oddly alluring) demonic patrons, Mr. Vale. But when their tenuous alliance thrusts Marian even deeper into a world of betrayal, humans with strange powers, and demonic politics, she’ll have to decide if allying with Mr. Vale is her ticket to freedom or damnation in disguise.

One part slow-burn romance and one part acerbic wit, Hellbound is a dark contemporary fantasy romance perfect for readers who prefer their casts morally gray and the stakes sky-high.

Any More Questions for the Corpse? by J. J. Unthank

Twenty-one-year-old Malowin Gladstone was raised by the dead—two skeletons to be precise. While his parents keep a close eye-socket on him, he just wants to get through the rest of university without using any more of his much-loathed necromancy. A hope that gets all the more difficult when he’s recruited by a secret Order to hunt a serial killer.

Dunwich, the hidden magical capital of England, has its fair share of oddities, its most recent being a series of murders that have the police at a dead end. But Detective Walters has an unorthodox suggestion. Who better to find a killer than someone who can talk to the dead? He proposes that Mal use his necromancy for good and solve the case before it goes stone-cold.

As more bodies begin to drop, Mal befriends several misfits who help him unearth the culprit. Among them, Des, a fledgling vampire; Hala, a magical empath; and Yu, a shapeshifting genius.

The team put their unique set of skills to the task, but as they get closer to digging up the truth, the group’s ghosts come back to haunt them, and the killer won’t rest until they’re all dead and buried.

Murder Like Magic by Trisha Blanchet

Tess Tulley is the proud proprietor of Mill City Investigations—the premier (if you ask her) private investigation business in her small Massachusetts city. Business is slow, especially after she blew up her credibility among her fellow Spinners (do not call them witches) by turning in her own uncle for a crime spree three years ago. Loyalty among Spinners is top priority, and Tess’s decision to put the investigation over her coven has left her out in the cold.

So when the local “Officer Handsome” comes knocking with a bizarre murder investigation involving a dead Spinner, Tess is reluctant to take the case. Even more so when she learns the details: The victim was stabbed postmortem, there’s no sign of who or what actually killed her, and the body was found in a pool of someone else’s blood.

Left with few other options, Tess dusts off her investigative skills, revs up her so-so telepathy, and dives headfirst back into her old community of Spinners. If she’s lucky, she’ll be able to unmask a killer and figure out whose blood had been left behind at the crime scene—and why. If she’s not lucky (and let’s face it, she rarely is), Tess might just become the next casualty on a slab in the Mill City morgue.

The Jezebel List by Alisa Dean

✔ Attend a pagan festival
✔ Get a Brazilian wax
☐ Watch pornography
☐ Explore a science museum
☐ Have a one-night stand
☐ Take the Lord’s name in vain, with relish

These barely begin to scratch the surface of Christina Edmondson’s Jezebel list. As the daughter of a once-respected fundamentalist pastor and running out the clock on her last semester at the ultraconservative (read: ultrabackward) Hilltop University, Christina is ready for a drastic change. Following months of intense therapy and years of being told that the enchanting evils of the modern world would lead to eternal damnation, attending a pagan festival feels like freedom. And then she catches the eye of documentarian Danny Reeves.

After meeting Christina and her Jezebel list, Danny is immediately inspired. Despite the recent burnout of his professional career investigating the injustices of the Evangelical South, Danny is certain that Christina’s story is one with the potential to resonate with millions. A fan of his work, Christina agrees to be the subject of his next documentary, but under one condition: they must complete her list together.

As they begin checking items off the list, neither one expects the spark burning brighter and hotter between them. But for Christina, outsmarting old demons is hard, and rediscovering yourself takes courage.

A dazzling exploration of identity, The Jezebel List is unapologetically candid and will delight readers who long for the happily ever after.

Where Wilted Flowers Bloom by Johanna Rojas Vann

From the multi-award-winning author of An American Immigrant comes the story of a woman walking through paralyzing grief and the unlikely friendship that might unlock a path to healing.

Leaving behind the only city she’s known, Sandra and her family move from New York City to East Nashville for her husband’s job and a fresh start. She’ll miss her family and thriving career, but she is desperate to leave behind the city that holds her greatest loss.

And yet even with moving into a new home she designed and having the freedom to be a stay-at-home mom for the first time, her new life in Nashville is not what she thought it would be. She quickly realizes grief still follows her, and no new place can fix it.

When she meets her next-door neighbor Mark—an elderly, widowed, retired Pastor—an unlikely friendship quickly forms. His humor, spiritual wisdom, and affinity for gardening—a skill he was forced to learn when his late wife passed—brings a welcome distraction from Sandra’s suffocating grief, giving her hope for the first time since her tragic loss. Will this friendship be just what Sandra needs to heal her broken heart? Or will more unexpected news leave Sandra with even more heartache?

The Essential Ingredient: Remaking Ourselves in Times of Crisis

Our world is facing colliding crises: climate catastrophe, species extinction, a global rise in authoritarianism, economic collapse, water and food scarcity, rampant gun violence, the failure and dysfunction of our institutions, the erosion of community and social
cohesion—and so much more. Hope, by itself, is powerless against the magnitude of systemic breakdown we are facing. Hopelessness and despair are detrimental to our health and well-being. Denial, fear, blame, and willful blindness have brought us to this precipice. Neither consoling nor fear-baiting, this book is a candid conversation with the reader about how transformation in the world begins within each of us. Inspired by the art of alchemy and some of the wisest thinkers throughout history, The Essential Ingredient asks: What might be possible if tomorrow’s ideas were not predicated on yesterday’s?\ No more half-solutions and lukewarm platitudes that do little more than give change a nod and a wink. The time for radical work is now. We are the ones to undertake it.

Enheduanna’s Song From the Sands by Ellen Rachlin

Enheduanna, a female poet who lived in ancient Mesopotamia two thousand years before Virgil and seventeen hundred years before Sappho, is often cited as the world’s first known author, but her story of resilience and survival has been mostly lost to history – until now. Ellen Rachlin takes on Enheduanna’s story in her debut historical fantasy novel, “Enheduanna’s Song From the Sands” (August 25, 2026, Histria Fiction). An award-winning poet herself, Rachlin saw the importance of bringing Enheduanna’s story of feminist resilience to a modern audience in a narrative as inspiring as it is compelling.

Dreamers of the Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki

From the bestselling author of the Japanese sensation The Full Moon Coffee Shop, this charming and heartfelt standalone novel brings more lost souls to the enchanted café—where they might find some help from the cats who run it.

Under the energetic star of Neptune the doors to people’s hearts are opening...

In Japan, cats are a symbol of good luck. As the myth goes, if you are kind to them, they'll one day return the favor. And if you are kind to the right cat, you might just find yourself invited to a mysterious coffee shop under a bright moon.

Under one such moon in August, Neptune pays the Full Moon Coffee Shop a visit, taking the form of a beautiful human called Sala. Sala’s special talent is giving people dreams and helping them to open their hearts. As the cats work with Sala, they find new ways to guide people as their customers face personal conflict.

When Satsuki, returning home after she spent three years away with minimal contact, decides to introduce her new boyfriend to her mother Fujiko, she learns an unexpected truth about her family’s past.

Meanwhile, Fujiko is struggling to come to terms with her true feelings about her place in life and author Wataru is facing writer’s block after years of success. Can Sala and the cats help Fujiko and Wataru open their hearts?

Beautifully weaving together three people in a story about love in all forms, this heartwarming novel in the USA Today bestselling series highlights the importance of being true to oneself and recognizing one’s innermost feelings.

Not a Word by Linwood Barclay

In the latest chilling thriller from New York Times bestselling author Linwood Barclay, a man’s world is upended after he stumbles upon a grisly crime scene in the family home.

Every family has secrets, but when Reece visits his parents’ house, he’s shocked to find them in bed, dead. At first glance it looks like a murder-suicide perpetrated by his father, but on closer inspection there’s clearly more to the story. For starters, inconsistencies in the crime scene suggest his dad may not have shot himself.

As Reece, shaken by his horrifying discovery, awaits questioning from the police, his phone lights up with a call. It’s the last person he ever would have expected to hear from.

Reeling from the day’s events, Reece finds himself questioning everything he thought he knew about his parents—and whether he and his own family are in danger now. While the authorities work to untangle the baffling crime scene, Reece is pulled into a web of secrets linked to the unscrupulous pharma company his father worked for years ago.

In order to protect the people he loves most, he’ll have to dig deep into his own past to understand who his parents were, what they did, and who they hurt—before he ends up paying for their sins.

The Phone Swap by Lia Louis

An accidental phone swap finds a celebrity heartthrob falling in love with an ordinary girl. But falling in love in private is not as simple as falling in love in reality. Especially if the world is somehow still watching...

When never-been-in-love, ambitious scientist Allie, and romantic, golden retriever movie star Milo switch seats on a plane, they find themselves unintentionally stuck with the other’s phone. Although now an ocean apart, they agree to help each other—just until they can meet to swap them back. As they trade back and forth on each other’s phones, Allie and Milo can’t help but notice there’s more to their connection than just messages and digital practicalities. Something real.

But as the clock ticks down to them finally meeting, Allie and Milo discover that their meet-cute may not be as simple as their intimate messages and private video calls.

As two very different worlds collide, is the chance for true love even possible? After all, you can’t escape reality forever. Right?

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