Talia Tucker

From the author of Rules for Rule Breaking comes a queer YA romance about two solo concertgoers and unwitting seatmates who, when the show is abruptly cut short, embark on an unforgettable North Carolina summer night together, discovering how opposites can attract under the right circumstances.Dakarai (Kai) Barbier was supposed to be at CYPHR?s sold-out show with his best friends. Instead, he finds himself going solo, reeling from the news that they?ve decided to accelerate the next chapter of their lives, leaving him alone the summer after high school graduation.    Meanwhile, Elias Davis has just been sent from New York City to North Carolina to live with his uncle after a last-straw fistfight. Stuck in a town he doesn?t want to be in, and without knowing a soul his own age, he buys a single ticket to CYPHR?s Raleigh show.    When a sudden blackout ends the show early, forcing these unwitting seatmates back onto the streets of Raleigh, they are faced with a choice: get on the bus and head home or take a chance on each other. They might have arrived alone, but will they be leaving together?

Winter Park and Bobby Bae are Korean American high school juniors whose families have been friends since the kids were making crayon art. They, however, are repulsed by each other. Winter is MIT-bound, comfortable keeping people at arm’s length, and known by others as responsible, though she has a desire to let loose. This probably comes from her rebel grandmother, who is constantly pushing boundaries and encouraging Winter to do so as well. Winter’s best friend is moving abroad and won’t be attending college at all, and Winter’s wrestling with what it means to be left behind. Bobby is as type A, anxious, and risk-averse as you can get. He’s also been recently dumped, which has him feeling disoriented and untethered. That’s why when Winter’s and Bobby’s parents insist that they go on a Northeast college campus tour together, both teens find reasons to accept even though the idea of being stuck in a car together for seven hundred miles sounds unbearable. What awaits them is a journey of self-discovery, and the only rule on their road trip is to break all the rules. At first, this happens in hilariously calculated ways (using lists and reason and logic!), but Winter and Bobby soon abandon that, challenging each other to dares in Virginia, getting high and wandering around Philly for food - and battling the subsequent digestive distress - and crashing a party in Cambridge. And, of course, realising that they’re perfect together.