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This was SUCH a special book. It’s a totally character-driven, masterfully understated roadtrip story full of intelligence, wit and depth.

It’s the story of Camryn, a 20 year old girl with a past full of emotional trauma, and Andrew, a 25 year old man whose father is dying of a brain tumour. Both wrung out by tragedy, both impending and past, they wake up one day and just know that they have to get on a bus to travel. It’s a fatalistic decision that brings them together almost as if it was meant to be as they are both lost in their own lives and misery and they form a blossoming friendship on the bus while they are both trying to escape the events that have mired their lives. The two of them are lost and drifting and they develop a growing connection with one another that neither of them will name nor even admit to themselves, all the time not confronting their issues.

It’s at once sweet and sad at the same time as it is sardonic and funny. It’s a surprisingly grown-up romance based, at least for the first half of the novel, on the deliberate repression of sexual attraction and gratification that enables it to exude an emotional intensity so often missing in these types of novel. Real life constantly intrudes on their trip with texts and phone calls from their families and friends and despite all this and their own discernible loneliness, the pair forge a mutual dependence during their roadtrip and reignite feelings they had both long attempted to bury.

This is a meaningful and moving romance told with unhurried restraint �� there’s a pleasing shapelessness to it which allows the story to drift and meander slowly, to give time to the slow development of the romance. Their relationship has a tenderness and authenticity to it as it moves on influenced more by what is left unsaid rather than what is actually said. Their understanding, of course, becomes infused by sexual tension and their attachment is sharp and potent and they both try to resist it for the longest time. Both have reasons not to enter into a relationship with the other but everything in their hearts and desires tell them to.

When they finally do, their passion burns white hot and their feelings for one another intensify but there is still one further secret to be revealed and, I confess, I cried like a baby. The whole novel is a bittersweet reference to the transience of life and, by the end; I just wanted to hold on to everything and everyone that is precious to me.

So, this is a stunning journey of two lost and lonely souls finding each other like Eurydice and Orpheus �� soul mates. It’s a slow, emotional story that allows the central relationship to build believably before the climactic conclusion

4 stars New Adult contemporary romance

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